LIBRARY 

UNIVCUSITY  OF 
CMJFONN1A 

SAN  DIEGO 


MEMORIES  AND  THOUGHTS 


MEMORIES  AND  THOUGHTS 


MEN—  BOOKS—  CITIES— A  R  T 


BY 

FREDERIC  HARRISON 

AUTHOR  OF  "THE  CHOICE  OF  BOOKS,"  ETC. 


gorft 
THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

LONDON :   MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LTD. 
I9O6 

All  rights  reserved 


COFYMGHT,   1906, 

BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  clectrotyped.     Published  Octcber,   1906. 


XortoaoB 

J.  8.  Cashing  A  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


NOTE 

THIS  volume  is  the  reply  to  frequent  appeals  to  the 
writer  to  collect  pieces  which  within  the  last  ten  or  twenty 
years  have  appeared  in  America  and  in  Reviews  and  Jour- 
nals at  home.  The  first  was  called  out  by  friends  in  the 
United  States  who  desired  a  slight  biographical  sketch,  as 
it  is  their  custom  to  expect.  It  is  indeed  a  chapter  from 
certain  Memoirs  that  the  writer  intends  to  retain  in  manu- 
script penes  se.  Various  as  are  the  other  pieces  in  subject, 
and  occasional  as  they  were  in  origin,  the  author  in  his  old 
age  submits  them  to  his  readers  as  permanent  impressions 
left  on  his  mind  by  a  somewhat  wide  experience.  He  now 
arranges  in  order  some  reminiscences  of  the  famous  men 
and  women  he  has  known,  the  great  books  he  has  studied, 
the  splendid  memories  of  Nature  and  of  Art  which  he  will 
cherish  to  the  last.  He  has  to  thank  the  courtesy  of  pub- 
lishers for  permission  to  use  pieces  which  appeared  many 
years  ago  in  America  —  in  The  Forum,  The  North  American 
Review,  Harper's  Magazine ;  and  at  home,  in  The  Fort- 
nightly, Nineteenth  Century,  and  Contemporary  Reviews ; 
in  The  Times,  The  Daily  Chronicle,  The  Tribune,  The 
Speaker,  and  some  other  periodicals. 

HAWKHURST,  October  1906. 


CONTENTS 


FACE 


1.  MY  MEMORIES.     1837-1890 i 

School  Life 4 

Oxford 7 

Education 10 

A  Visit  to  A.  Comte 14 

Literary  Life 15 

Meliorist  at  Last        .         ,         .         .         .         .         .         .16 

Postscript,  1906 17 

2.  THE  BURIAL  OF  TENNYSON.     1892      .        .        .        .        .20 

His  Successors 23 

His  Special  Form 25 

3.  THE  BURIAL  OF  RENAN.     1892 28 

4.  SIR  A.  LY ALL'S  "TENNYSON."    1903 31 

5.  THE  MILLENARY  OF  KING  ALFRED.     1897         .        .        -47 

6.  THE  TERCENTENARY  OF  CROMWELL.     1899  55 

7.  THE  STATUE  OF  OLIVER  CROMWELL.     1899      ...      64 

8.  THE  REMAINS  OF  OLIVER  CROMWELL.     1899     .        .        .71 

9.  THE  CENTENARY  OF  GIBBON.     1894 77 

10.  THE  CARLYLE  HOUSE.     1895 90 

11.  SCIENTIFIC  HISTORY.     1906 96 

12.  THE  NEW  MOTLEY.     1896 103 

13.  MAINE'S  "ANCIENT  LAW"  REVISED.     1906        .        .        .no 

14.  IMPERIAL  MANNERS.     1906 115 

15.  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN.     1906 119 

1 6.  ALEXANDER  HAMILTON.     1906 124 

17.  THACKERAY.     1903 129 

18.  REMINISCENCES  OF  GEORGE  ELIOT.    1901          .        .        .134 

vii 


viii  CONTENTS 

MM 

19.  THE  COMPLETE  RUSKIN.     1906 150 

20.  MAURICE  HEWLETT.     1906 164 

21.  IMPRESSIONS  OF  AMERICA.     1901 173 

Chicago 177 

Democracy 180 

The  Capital 188 

Mount  Vernon 193 

Problems  to  be  Solved 196 

22.  THE  TRUE  COSMOPOLIS.     1896 202 

The  Renascence 206 

Imperialism 215 

23.  THE  REGRETS  OF  A  VETERAN  TRAVELLER.     1887    .        .219 

24.  THE  RIVIERA  DI  LEV  ANTE.     1898 236 

Postscript,  1906 244 

25.  Ecco  LA  TOSCANA!     1904 245 

26.  A  PILGRIMAGE  TO  LOURDES.     1896 253 

27.  L'ESPRIT  FRAN^AIS.     1899 259 

28.  A  WORD  FOR  ENGLAND.     1898 260 

29.  ON  A  SCOTCH  REPLY.     1898 266 

30.  THE  SCOTTISH  PETITION  TO  THE  QUEEN.     1898        .        .  272 

31.  IDEAL  LONDON.     1898 278 

Postscript,  1906 299 

32.  Music  IN  GREAT  CITIES.     1898 298 

Postscript,  1906 302 

33.  HISTORIC  PARIS.     1894 303 

34.  OUR  CATHEDRALS.     1895 319 

35.  PICTURE  EXHIBITIONS.     1888              .        .        .        .        .  325 

36.  NUDE  STUDIES.     1885 348 

37.  A  MORNING  IN  THE  GALLERIES.     1905      ....  355 

38.  AT  BURLINGTON  HOUSE.    ANCIENT  MASTERS.    1906         .  369 

39.  TOBACCO.    1905 374 

40.  CARD-PLAYING.    1905 379 


CONTENTS  ix 


PAGE 


41.  GAME  PRESERVING  AND  BATTUES.     1905    ....  383 

42.  "THE  GLORIOUS  TWELFTH."    AUGUST  1890       .        .        .  390 

43.  THE  JOLLY  GIRL.     1882 394 

44.  MAN  AND  THE  BRUTES.     1900 401 


MY   MEMORIES 

1837-1890 

[The  Forum  of  New  York,  October  1890,  Vol.  X.,  in  reply  to  a  request  to 
•write  some  reminiscences.] 

THOSE  of  us  who  are  approaching  sixty  years  of  age  have 
the  good  luck,  I  often  think,  to  bear  the  memory  of  a  most 
extraordinary  time.  We  are  still  young  enough,  as  we  fondly 
flatter  ourselves,  to  hope  that  we  may  yet  see  great  changes 
in  the  world.  And  we  are  old  enough  to  remember  what  the 
world  was  without  some  of  its  most  familiar  institutions,  and 
without  what  now  seem  indispensable  appliances  of  life. 
As  a  child,  I  can  remember  things  which  are  now  thought 
barbarous  relics  of  the  past;  and  I  often  wonder  how  we 
managed  to  live  without  lucifer  matches,  railways,  telegraphs, 
penny  post,  or  even  household  suffrage. 

My  memory  reaches  back  from  1837  over  the  whole  reign 
of  the  Queen,  whose  fifty-three  years  of  rule  have  witnessed 
wonderful  things  —  things  which  have  transformed  our  exter- 
nal life  and  have  deeply  modified  our  inner  life.  Among  my 
earliest  recollections  is  the  return  home  one  day  of  my  father 
with  the  words,  "The  King  is  dead  !"  My  first  definite  im- 
pression of  public  life  was  the  coronation  of  the  Queen,  of 
which  I  witnessed  the  procession  in  Palace  Yard  at  West- 
minster. There  for  the  first  time  I  began  to  conceive  what 
living  history  means ;  to  think  about  statesmen,  nations,  and 
government.  I  saw  the  great  Duke  and  the  heroes  of  Water- 
loo —  it  was  then  only  three  years  further  off  than  is  Sedan 


2  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

from  us  now  —  I  remember  Marshal  Soult,  and  Esterhazy, 
and  the  ambassadors  of  many  kings.  There  too  I  first  heard 
the  roar  of  a  vast  crowd ;  and  I  was  told  how  the  Abbey  and 
the  Hall  at  Westminster  before  me  had  been  the  scene  of  the 
coronation  of  a  score  of  kings  and  queens,  and  had  been  built 
by  men  who  fought  in  the  Crusades  and  at  Crecy  and  Agin- 
court.  I  can  recall  now,  like  a  series  of  historical  pictures, 
every  separate  scene  in  that  long,  and  to  me,  a  small  country 
child,  most  wonder-stirring  day. 

The  American  people,  spread  over  an  almost  boundless 
continent,  where  everything  around  them  is  the  work  of  one 
or  two  generations,  wonder  not  a  little  at  our  slow  and  old- 
world  English  ways.  In  this  small,  centralised,  densely- 
packed  island,  we  grow  up  from  childhood  with  the  roots  of 
the  old  order  always  around  us.  I  was  born  in  the  days  of 
rotten  boroughs,  bribery,  and  pocket  seats;  when  noble- 
men's butlers  returned  members  to  Parliament  in  his  lord- 
ship's hall.  The  widow  of  an  M.P.  used  to  frank  our  letters, 
and  that  saved  us  sometimes  eightpence  apiece.  Omni- 
buses, cabs,  and  policemen  had  just  been  invented ;  but  they 
were  still  thought  new-fangled  fads.  Post  boys,  hackney 
coaches,  and  watchmen  were  still  familiar  figures  of  the  streets. 
It  was  the  era  of  Pickwick.  We  did  without  railways.  From 
London  to  Brighton  or  to  Bath  we  had  to  drive;  and  if  with 
the  same  horses,  no  faster  than  thirty  miles  in  a  day.  Ocean 
steam  navigation  was  an  experiment;  our  only  telegraph  was 
the  wooden  semaphore ;  there  was  no  fire  brigade,  and  our 
only  fire  engines  were  hand  pumps ;  the  water  supply  came  in 
part  from  wells;  there  were  no  main  sewers,  and  cesspools 
existed  in  great  cities.  Slavery  existed  in  our  colonies  and 
possessions  beyond  sea,  and  nearly  a  million  of  Negroes  were 
bought  and  sold  in  the  King's  dominions.  India  was  gov- 
erned by  a  company  of  private  merchants,  who  had  a  monop- 
oly of  the  trade  to  China.  Men  were  hanged  by  the  score, 


MY  MEMORIES:  1837-1890  3 

and  sometimes  in  chains.  Forgery  and  other  felonies  were 
still  punishable  by  death.  Southey  was  our  poet  laureate, 
though  Scott  and  Coleridge,  Campbell  and  Lamb,  still  lived. 
Landseer  and  Maclise  formed  our  ideals  in  art,  Bulwer- 
Lytton  was  our  model  in  literature,  and  Count  D'Orsay  in 
manners.  Tennyson,  Macaulay,  Carlyle,  Mill,  Dickens, 
Thackeray,  Darwin,  and  Gladstone  were  unknown  youths. 
The  memory  of  the  old  system  was  still  quite  fresh.  Many 
living  men  could  remember  Washington,  Jefferson,  and  Madi- 
son, and  the  last  war  between  England  and  the  United  States. 
My  own  grandfather  was  born  under  George  II.,  and  my 
father  could  remember  the  victories  of  Nelson.  My  mother 
told  anecdotes  of  Napoleon,  which  she  had  from  the  family 
of  Sir  Hudson  Lowe,  while  the  Emperor  was  a  prisoner  at  St. 
Helena.  The  brother  of  Louis  XVI.  had  just  ceased  to  be 
king  of  France,  and  was  living  at  Holyrood,  as  the  ex-King 
Charles  X.  Metternich  was  supreme  in  Germany,  the  Czar 
Nicholas  in  Russia,  and  Louis  Philippe  in  France. 

My  childhood  was  thus  passed  in  the  great  epoch  of  prog- 
ress which  followed  on  the  break-up  of  the  old  absolutism  in 
Europe  after  1830.  It  was  also  the  epoch  of  the  vast  mate- 
rial changes  which  have  arisen  out  of  the  railway  system, 
ocean  steam  navigation,  the  telegraph  system  and  the  manifold 
uses  of  electricity,  the  cheap  postal  system,  popular  literature, 
the  development  of  journalism,  the  enormous  expansion  of 
great  cities,  and  the  settlement  of  Australia,  South  Africa, 
and  of  the  western  continent  of  America.  More  especially 
in  England,  the  period  covers  the  immense  succession  of  re- 
forms which  come  between  the  Reform  Act  of  1832  and  the 
free-trade  legislation  of  1846.  As  may  be  supposed,  this 
series  of  changes  was  but  dimly  understood  by  a  boy.  But 
it  gave  me  a  general  sense  that  everything  around  me  was 
an  open  question;  that  there  was  no  habit  of  life  which  we 
might  not  expect  to  see  changed.  My  father,  a  cautious  city 


4  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

man,  conservative  by  instinct  and  by  conviction,  shook 
his  head,  even  while  his  good  sense  admitted  the  improve- 
ment. For  my  part,  I  liked  the  new  thing;  waited  to  see 
what  would  come  next;  and,  except  that  I  admired  Alci- 
biades,  the  Crusaders,  and  Charles  I.,  had  no  particular 
prejudices.  Though  I  lived  in  a  quiet  country  village,  all 
my  real  interests  were  in  London,  which  could  be  seen 
across  miles  of  rich  open  meadows,  from  the  lovely  northern 
hill  on  which  our  house  stood.  A  walk  from  town  then 
would  take  one  into  an  exquisite  rural  solitude,  unbroken  by 
the  roar  of  the  engine,  unpolluted  by  the  pall  of  smoke.  My 
tranquil  days  were  passed  in  many  a  leafy  copse  and  sloping 
glade,  beyond  which  the  dome  of  St.  Paul's  seemed  to  hang 
in  the  atmosphere  of  the  dim  distance,  as  does  that  of  St. 
Peter's  from  the  Campagna.  In  those  days  it  was  quite 
possible  to  belong  to  the  capital  by  interest,  society,  and 
habits,  and  yet  to  dwell  in  a  beautiful  country  and  in  a  peace- 
ful rural  solitude.  I  have  lived  to  see  London  increase  150 
per  cent  in  population,  and  500  per  cent  in  area ;  and  now  I 
must  go  forty  miles  away  from  it  to  find  the  same  rustic 
peace.  And,  with  all  our  railways,  telegraphs,  post  offices, 
and  newspapers,  it  is  no  longer  possible  to  dwell  in  a  pure 
country  and  yet  to  belong  to  a  great  city.  In  my  boyhood 
it  was. 

SCHOOL  LIFE 

At  the  age  of  nine  I  went  to  reside  in  London,  and  for 
two  years  was  taught  in  a  day  school  by  Joseph  King  of  Maida 
Hill,  the  most  admirable  schoolmaster  I  have  ever  known. 
I  began  Greek  with  Homer  and  Latin  with  Virgil,  the  gram- 
mars being  taught  verbally,  without  books.  At  the  age  of 
eleven  I  went  to  King's  College  School,  which  I  left  as  second 
in  the  school  in  1849.  My  schoolfellows  were  sons  of  Charles 


MY  MEMORIES:  1837-1890  5 

Dickens,  T.  Landseer,  Richard  Lane,  Macready,  the  actor, 
Lord  Westbury,  the  Chancellor;  afterwards  the  only  son  of 
Edward  Irving,  and  in  the  sixth  form  for  two  years  I  sat  next 
to  Henry  Parry  Liddon,  late  Canon  of  St.  Paul's.  I  was  a 
boy  at  school  when  the  great  movement  of  1848  swept  over 
Europe,  shook  down  so  many  thrones,  and  opened  the  era  of 
so  many  wars  of  race  and  of  frontier.  Cram  full  of  Livy 
and  Tacitus,  Thucydides  and  Xenophon,  Corneille  and 
Schiller,  Milton,  Byron,  and  Shelley,  at  the  precise  age  when 
youths  debate  whether  despotisms  or  republics  are  to  be 
preferred,  when  they  write  essays  on  the  character  of  Julius 
Caesar  or  Cromwell,  compose  odes  to  Liberty  and  Latin 
verses  on  Brutus  and  Tarquin,  we  were  just  ready  to  be  im- 
pressed with  the  tumultuous  succession  of  events  which 
surged  across  Europe  in  1848-49.  I  delighted  to  note  that 
Louis  Philippe  lost  his  throne  on  the  24th  of  February  — 
the  Regifugium,  or  day  when  Rome  celebrated  the  expulsion 
of  her  kings.  It  was  a  stirring  time,  when  kings,  emperors, 
and  popes  fled  in  disguise,  when  new  republics  were  being 
proclaimed,  when  socialism,  communism,  and  imperialism 
fought  it  out  in  a  dozen  great  cities,  when  Chartism  was 
thought  to  be  revolutionary,  and  when  Bright  and  Cobden 
were  dangerous  demagogues.  It  was  difficult  for  a  youth 
entering  manhood  between  the  years  1848  and  1852  not  to  be 
an  ardent  politician.  And,  passing  my  time,  as  I  did,  between 
the  whirl  of  the  great  city  and  the  studies  of  the  university,  I 
took  a  lively  interest  in  all  the  political  and  social  events  of 
that  era.  I  do  not  remember  that  I  fell  into  precise  party 
lines  or  that  I  formed  dogmatic  opinions.  We  were  all  too 
full  of  political  theories  and  classical  examples  to  be  mere 
Tories,  Whigs,  and  Radicals.  And  we  were  too  much 
impressed  by  the  burning  questions  which  arose  day  by  day 
to  be  satisfied  with  any  abstract  politics.  London  and  Oxford 


6  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

corrected  each  other.  Plato  and  Lord  Palmerston  taught 
very  different  codes  of  politics.  We  were  interested  by  both, 
and  by  a  thousand  new  events  which  neither  of  these  masters 
seemed  able  to  explain.  Like  most  of  my  companions,  I 
came  to  the  conclusion  that  society  in  the  middle  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  was  an  extraordinarily  complex  thing  —  a 
thing  of  intense  interest  and  of  profound  meaning.  Gradu- 
ally I  settled  into  a  deep,  lasting,  and  passionate  sympathy 
with  the  popular  cause  everywhere  and  in  all  forms.  Having 
no  hereditary  or  acquired  prejudices  in  favour  of  any  class 
or  of  any  special  type  of  society,  I  slowly  parted  with  my 
boyish  liking  for  conquerors,  cavaliers,  and  princesses  in 
distress,  and  took  my  side  with  the  cause  of  oppressed  nations 
and  the  struggling  people.  I  had  seen  the  Chartist  move- 
ment in  London  and  had  heard  great  debates  in  Parliament, 
and  I  became  a  convinced  free  trader  and  an  ardent  national- 
ist. Aurelio  Saffi,  the  friend  of  Mazzini  and  one  of  his  col- 
leagues in  the  Triumvirate  at  Rome  in  1849,  settled  at 
Oxford,  and  he  became  my  teacher  in  Italian  and  my  close 
friend.  He  introduced  me  to  other  Italian  exiles ;  and  from 
them  and  from  Francis  Newman,  whom  I  knew  later,  I 
received  a  deep  interest  in  the  cause  of  nations  struggling  to 
be  free.  At  the  same  time  I  read  much  French,  and  knew 
France  and  Frenchmen.  As  a  schoolboy,  three  times  I  passed 
my  autumn  in  France ;  once,  in  a  French  family  in  Normandy, 
connected  with  my  own.  While  living  among  them,  I  saw 
every  phase  of  French  provincial  life  as  described  by  Balzac 
in  the  forties.  This  commenced  my  close  familiarity  with 
France,  which  for  forty  years  I  have  visited  almost  without 
the  interruption  of  a  single  year.  I  was  three  times  in  France 
during  the  reign  of  Louis  Philippe,  and  again  during  the 
second  republic,  just  before  the  coup  d'etat  of  1851.  The 
atrocities  of  that  time  and  the  infamies  of  the  empire  of  1852 


MY  MEMORIES:  1837-1890  7 

stirred  me  to  the  soul.  By  the  time  I  was  twenty-five,  I  had 
seen  most  of  the  principal  cities  of  France,  Germany,  and 
Northern  Italy;  I  had  some  knowledge  of  the  language,  cir- 
cumstances, and  recent  history  of  all  of  these  countries;  I 
was  a  republican  by  conviction,  had  a  deep  enthusiasm  for 
the  popular  cause  throughout  Europe,  and  was  inclined  to  the 
socialist  solution  of  the  great  class  question. 

OXFORD 

I  went  up  to  Oxford  from  school  in  1849  5  a^  a  ^me  when 
the  great  controversy  in  theology,  which  shook  the  Church  and 
led  to  the  conversion  of  Cardinal  Newman,  Cardinal  Manning, 
and  many  others,  was  passing  into  a  new  phase.  Liber- 
alism was  in  the  ascendant,  and  the  dominant  type  of 
thought  presented  to  me  was  Positive  rather  than  Catholic. 
J.  Stuart  Mill,  George  Grote,  Arnold  and  his  historical 
school,  Carlyle  and  his  political  school,  Comte  and  his 
Positive  school,  were  the  influences  under  which  my  mind 
was  formed.  I  was  still  a  student  when  Kingsley  published 
Allan  Locke  and  Yeast,  Ruskin  his  Modern  Painters  and 
Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture,  and  F.  Denison  Maurice  his 
Theological  Essays.  The  minds  of  raw  youths  are  influ- 
enced first,  not  by  the  great  masters  of  thought,  but  by  the 
masters  of  expression  and  of  pathos.  I  spent  six  years  at 
Oxford  as  student,  fellow,  and  tutor.  And  besides  the  regu- 
lar curriculum  of  the  ancient  and  modern  historians  and 
philosophers,  I  became  saturated  with  Mill's  Logic  and 
Political  Economy,  Grote's  History  of  Greece,  the  works  of 
Carlyle,  the  earlier  pieces  of  Lewes,  Herbert  Spencer,  and  Miss 
Martineau,  the  English  classical  historians,  and  Guizot, 
Michelet,  Mazzini,  and  Quinet.  Comte  I  knew  only  through 
G.  Lewes,  Littre,  and  Harriet  Martineau. 


8  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

At  the  same  time  I  read  not  a  little  theology,  both  orthodox 
and  unorthodox.  Cardinal  Newman's  Parish  Sermons, 
Keble's  Christian  Year,  Jeremy  Taylor,  Bishop  Butler, 
Dante,  Paradise  Lost,  and  the  Bible,  were  my  constant  read- 
ing, along  with  Robertson  of  Brighton,  F.  D.  Maurice,  Fran- 
cis Newman,  Theodore  Parker,  Strauss,  Lewes,  and  the  two 
Martineaus.  John  Henry  Newman,  the  cardinal,  and 
Francis  Newman,  the  theist,  interested  me  almost  equally; 
Lewes's  History  of  Philosophy  and  the  Lives  of  the  Saints 
occupied  me  alternately;  I  hardly  ever  missed  a  university 
sermon  or  a  number  of  the  Westminster  Review.  Whilst 
at  Oxford,  with  science  and  metaphysics  I  took  no  serious 
pains,  though  I  tried  to  make  out  what  they  came  to  in  the 
end.  But  almost  every  phase  of  theology,  every  age  in  his- 
tory, and  every  scheme  of  social  and  political  philosophy, 
supplied  me  with  matter  for  thought,  and  in  turn  com- 
manded my  sympathy.  I  imagine  that  is  a  very  common  form 
of  the  Oxford  mind,  at  least  it  was  so  in  the  fifties.  And  if 
I  took  the  complaint  in  any  unusual  mode,  it  was  simply  in 
this  —  that  I  saw  a  good  deal  to  respect  in  all  of  these  differ- 
ent views  of  the  "great  problem." 

I  was  brought  up  as  a  High  Churchman,  my  Godfather 
being  an  intimate  ally  of  Henry  Phillpotts,  Bishop  of  Exeter, 
and  he  took  care  to  give  me  a  thorough  training  in  orthodox 
divinity.  At  school  I  had  been  something  of  a  Neo-Catholic, 
and  took  the  sacrament  with  a  leaning  toward  transubstan- 
tiation.  As  a  student  at  college,  I  slowly  came  to  regard  the 
entire  scheme  of  theology  as  an  open  question ;  and  I  ulti- 
mately left  the  university,  about  the  age  of  twenty-four, 
without  assured  belief  in  any  form  of  supernatural  doctrine. 
But  as  the  supernatural  died  out  of  my  view,  the  natural  took 
its  place,  and  amply  covered  the  same  ground.  The  change 
was  so  gradual,  and  the  growth  of  one  phase  of  thought  out 


MY  MEMORIES:  1837-1890  9 

of  another  was  with  me  so  perfectly  regular,  that  I  have  never 
been  able  to  fix  any  definite  period  of  change,  nor  indeed  have 
I  ever  been  conscious  of  any  real  change  of  mind  at  all. 
I  have  never  known  any  abrupt  break  in  mental  attitude ; 
nor  have  I  ever  felt  change  of  belief  to  involve  moral  deteriora- 
tion, loss  of  peace,  or  storms  of  the  soul.  I  never  parted  with 
any  belief  till  I  had  found  its  complement;  nor  did  I  ever 
look  back  with  antipathy  or  contempt  on  the  beliefs  which 
I  had  outgrown.  That  which  was  objective  law  to  me  as  a 
youth,  has  become  subjective  duty  to  me  as  a  man.  I  have 
found  theology  to  be  a  fine  moral  training,  when  it  ceased  to 
be  an  external  dogma.  I  have  at  no  time  of  my  life  lost  faith 
in  a  supreme  Providence,  in  an  immortal  soul,  and  in  spiritual 
life ;  but  I  came  to  find  these  much  nearer  to  me  on  earth  than 
I  had  imagined,  much  more  real,  more  vivid,  and  more 
practical.  Superhuman  hopes  and  ecstasies  have  slowly 
taken  form  in  my  mind  as  practical  duties  and  indomitable 
convictions  of  a  good  that  is  to  be.  Theology,  with  its  reli- 
gious machinery  and  its  spiritual  consolations,  has  gained  a 
fresh  meaning  to  me,  now  that  I  look  on  it  as  a  mode  of  moral 
evolution  and  not  as  historical  reality.  I  read  the  Bible,  my 
Christian  mystics  and  poets  still,  and  with  greater  pleasure 
and  deeper  insight  than  I  did  when  I  was  told  to  believe  in 
thirty-nine  articles  and  to  repeat  the  three  creeds  and  the 
catechism. 

Happily,  both  at  school  and  at  college,  we  were  left  pretty 
free  to  learn  what  we  pleased  (so  that  we  did  really  learn), 
and  to  cultivate  our  minds  as  thinking  beings  and  not  as 
machines.  Our  teachers  succeeded  in  instilling  into  our 
minds  a  zeal  for  work  and  a  passion  for  self-improvement. 
But  neither  at  school  nor  at  college  were  we  ever  put  through 
the  mill.  I  read  the  classics  with  delight,  so  as  to  enjoy  them 
for  themselves,  without  ever  grinding  them  up  into  verbal 


10  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

exercises.  In  history,  I  believe  I  had  from  Richard  Con- 
greve  the  very  best  of  teaching ;  for  which  I  am  ever  grateful. 
And  in  philosophy,  we  were  taught  to  use  our  own  common 
sense,  and  not  to  repeat  tags  of  windy  systems.  I  managed 
to  satisfy  my  tutors;  but  they  taught  me  to  read  for  my 
mind's  sake,  and  not  for  the  sake  of  "  the  schools."  I  always 
felt  complete  indifference  to  prize-winning  in  all  its  forms,  and 
I  was  happy  enough  not  to  be  pressed  into  that  silly  waste 
of  time  by  parents,  tutors,  or  friends.  I  read  what  I  enjoyed, 
and  I  enjoyed  what  I  read.  Poetry,  art,  history,  politics,  and 
religion  gave  us  unfailing  matter  for  thought  and  interminable 
topics  of  debate.  Both  at  school  and  at  college  we  passed 
much  of  our  time  like  the  Athenians  in  the  days  of  Paul,  but 
I  do  not  think  it  was  time  ill  spent.  In  my  experience,  these 
discussions  turned  most  often  on  questions  of  religion,  though 
those  of  politics,  especially  of  the  international  order,  were 
nearly  as  constant.  Over  social  problems  we  ranged  freely, 
without  forming  systematic  doctrines  and  without  crys- 
tallising into  any  prejudice. 

EDUCATION 

I  have  now  an  experience  of  some  forty  years  as  student, 
teacher,  and  examiner ;  and  it  forces  on  me  a  profound  con- 
viction that  our  modern  education  is  hardening  into  a  narrow 
and  debasing  mill.  Education  is  over-driven,  over-systema- 
tised,  monotonous,  mechanical.  At  school  and  at  college, 
lads  and  girls  are  being  drilled  like  German  recruits  —  forced 
into  a  regulation  style  of  learning,  of  thinking,  and  even  of 
writing.  They  all  think  the  same  thing,  and  it  is  artificial  in 
all.  The  round  of  endless  examination  reduces  education  to 
a  professional  "cram,"  where  the  repetition  of  given  formulas 
passes  for  knowledge,  and  where  the  accurate  memory  of 


MY  MEMORIES:  1837-1890  II 

some  teacher's  "tips"  takes  the  place  of  thought.  Educa- 
tion ought  to  be  the  art  of  using  the  mind  and  of  arranging 
knowledge;  it  is  becoming  the  art  of  swallowing  pellets  of 
special  information.  The  professor  mashes  up  a  kind  of 
mental  "pemmican,"  which  he  rams  into  the  learner's 
gullet.  When  the  pupil  vomits  up  these  pellets,  it  is  called 
"passing  his  examination  with  honours."  Teachers  and 
pupils  cease  to  think,  to  learn,  to  enjoy,  to  feel.  They  be- 
come cogs  in  a  huge  revolving  mill-wheel,  which  never  ceases 
to  grind,  and  yet  never  grinds  out  anything  but  the  dust  of 
chaff.  The  academic  mill,  which  runs  now  at  high  pressure, 
like  a  Cunard  liner  racing  home,  seldom  forms  a  fresh 
mind.  From  this  curse  of  modern  pedantry,  my  compan- 
ions and  I  were  happily  saved  by  the  influence  of  Richard 
Congreve. 

For  the  first  thirty  years  of  my  life  I  was  essentially  a 
learner,  but  only  in  part  a  student  of  books.  Never  having 
been  a  great  reader,  and  not  having  acquired  the  passion  of 
pure  study,  I  cared  mainly  for  men,  things,  places,  and 
people.  As  a  student,  and  then  a  barrister  of  Lincoln's 
Inn,  I  read  quite  as  much  history  and  philosophy  as  law ;  and 
I  tried  to  correct  my  defective  training  in  science  by  following 
the  lectures  of  Owen,  Huxley,  Tyndall,  Liveing,  and  others, 
with  the  proper  text-books  and  studies  in  the  Museums.  In 
these  days  we  must  give  ourselves  up  either  to  literature  or  to 
practical  life,  if  we  wish  to  succeed,  and  perhaps  if  we  wish 
to  be  useful.  But  I  have  never  been  able  to  give  up  problems 
of  religion  and  philosophy  for  politics,  nor  yet  to  drop  interest 
in  politics  for  the  sake  of  books.  My  interests  have  always 
led  me  to  study  movements  on  the  spot,  and  from  the  lips  of 
those  who  originate  them.  In  this  spirit  I  have  sought  to 
understand  the  various  social  and  labour  questions  by  per- 
sonal intercourse  with  practical  men.  For  some  years  I 


12  MEMORIES  AND  THOUGHTS 

worked  as  a  teacher  in  the  Working  Men's  College,  under 
F.  Denison  Maurice,  along  with  Tom  Hughes  and  his  col- 
leagues. For  three  years  I  served  on  the  Trades  Union 
Commission,  and  then  was  Secretary  to  the  Digest  Com- 
mission. I  have  thus  been  in  close  relations  with  all  the 
leading  workmen  and  with  the  leading  economists  of  recent 
times.  I  have  known  intimately  the  principal  leaders  of  the 
trades  unions,  of  all  the  labour  leagues,  and  of  all  the  social 
and  co-operative  movements  of  the  last  thirty  years.  I 
have  followed  up  the  history  of  the  trade  questions  and  of 
the  labour  societies  in  London  and  in  many  provincial  and 
foreign  towns.  I  have  attended  trades-union,  co-operative, 
industrial,  international,  and  socialist  congresses,  both  in 
England  and  abroad;  and  have  visited  conferences,  com- 
mittees, and  meetings  in  all  parts  of  the  country.  A 
thousand  blue-books  and  treatises  on  economics  would  not 
have  taught  me  what  I  learned  from  the  Rochdale 
Pioneers,  from  trades-union  congresses,  from  strike  or 
union  committees,  from  international  congresses,  and 
from  men  like  George  Odgers,  Allen,  Burnett,  Applegarth, 
Howell,  Holyoake,  Arch,  and  Burns.  Economists  who  lay 
down  the  law  on  industrial  problems,  without  personal 
knowledge  of  a  single  workman  or  of  a  single  fact  in  a  work- 
man's life,  are  like  the  philosophers  in  Laputa  extracting 
sunbeams  from  cucumbers.  No  political  economy  is  worth 
a  cent  if  it  is  not  based  on  personal  knowledge;  it  is  not 
merely  the  "dismal  science,"  but  it  is  the  pedants'  science. 

In  the  same  way,  I  have  always  tried  to  make  out  political 
problems  by  personal  intercourse  with  those  who  led  them. 
The  franchise  question,  the  industrial  question,  the  American 
civil  war,  and  Home  Rule,  are  not  to  be  understood  from 
newspapers  and  reports.  I  went  to  Italy  after  the  campaign 
of  1859,  at  the  crisis  of  the  foundation  of  the  Italian  kingdom, 


MY  MEMORIES:  1837-1890  13 

and  had  conversations  with  Mazzini,  Garibaldi,  Minghetti, 
Saffi,  Poerio,  Farini,  Pepoli,  and  many  of  the  men  who 
governed  Italy  in  1859  and  who  made  the  northern  kingdom. 
In  the  same  way,  I  followed  up  the  history  of  the  third  repub- 
lic in  France  and  the  communal  insurrection  of  1871.  I  have 
had  conversations  with  Gambetta,  with  his  lieutenants,  and 
with  the  leaders  of  many  socialist  and  republican  parties. 
During  the  great  struggle  which  established  the  republic  in 
1877-78,  I  journeyed  through  all  parts  of  France,  and  saw 
the  political  leaders  of  each  district.  The  movements  of 
Germany  and  of  the  United  States  I  have  never  had  the  oppor- 
tunity to  study  on  the  spot ;  and  I  am  conscious  of  the  enor- 
mous difference  between  reading  newspapers  and  seeing 
men.  To  hunt  up  and  to  "interview"  men  of  note  is  a  silly 
and  odious  habit  of  our  day.  But  no  study  and  no  books 
can  supply  the  place  of  personal  intercourse  with  those  who 
know  and  those  who  lead.  I  am  sure  whole  libraries  would 
not  give  me  what  I  have  gained  in  converse  with  Gambetta, 
Mazzini,  Renan,  Michelet,  Louis  Blanc,  Tourgenieff,  F. 
Newman,  G.  H.  Lewes,  John  Bright,  J.  Stuart  Mill,  Carlyle, 
G.  Eliot,  Ruskin,  Cardinal  Manning,  John  Dillon,  John 
Burns,  Spencer,  Comte,  John  Morley,  and  Gladstone. 

On  questions  political,  industrial,  and  international,  I 
have  often  addressed  the  public ;  but  I  have  always  declined 
to  enter  politics  as  a  profession.  My  business  always 
seemed  to  me  to  endeavour  to  teach.  Compromise  is  the 
soul  of  politics,  and  personally  I  loathe  compromise.  The 
statesman's  duty  is  to  reckon  with  the  opinions  of  the  majority ; 
and  personally  I  feel  scanty  respect  for  the  majority,  and  I 
cannot  bring  myself  to  profess  it.  For  five-and-twenty  years 
my  essential  business  has  been  to  teach  the  principles  of 
Positivism.  Every  other  aim  or  occupation  has  been  sub- 
sidiary and  instrumental  to  this.  The  field  is  large  enough 


14  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

for  a  lifetime;  and  it  is  one  which  makes  impossible  any 
career  whatever,  either  literary,  political,  practical,  or  social. 
I  have  enlarged  to  the  public  on  Positivism  usque  ad  nauseam, 
and  I  will  not  return  to  it  now.  To  one  point  only  would  I 
refer  —  the  prolonged  study  and  the  gradual  stages  by  which 
I  came  to  adopt  it. 

A  VISIT  TO  A.  COMTE 

I  was  quite  thirty-five  before  I  fully  absorbed  the  Positive 
system.  I  had  been  a  systematic  student  of  it  for  ten  or 
twelve  years  before.  Comte's  system  was  known  to  me  as 
an  undergraduate,  but  it  was  not  completely  published  until 
I  was  twenty-five.  Before  that,  I  had  paid  him  a  visit  in 
Paris,  and  had  had  a  long  and  memorable  conversation  with 
him.  My  college  tutor,  Richard  Congreve,  a  pupil  of 
Dr.  Arnold  of  Rugby,  afterward  became  the  first  preacher  of 
Positivism  in  England ;  and  several  of  my  intimate  college 
friends  are  now  my  colleagues  at  Newton  Hall.  But  none  of 
us  adopted  Positivism  until  after  we  had  left  Oxford.  For 
my  part,  the  acceptance  of  the  general  principles  of  Auguste 
Comte  has  been  the  result  of  very  long  and  unremitting  study, 
and  it  proceeded  by  a  series  of  marked  stages.  First  his 
view  of  history  commanded  my  assent;  then  his  scheme  of 
education;  next  his  social  Utopia;  then  the  politics;  after 
that  his  general  view  of  philosophy ;  and  finally  the  religious 
scheme  in  its  main  features.  During  the  whole  of  the  pro- 
cess, up  to  the  last  point,  I  reserved  large  portions  of  the 
system,  to  which  I  felt  actual  repugnance,  or  at  least  con- 
firmed doubt.  And  during  the  various  stages  I  kept  up  lively 
interest,  and  no  little  sympathy,  with  many  kindred,  rival, 
and  even  antagonistic  systems,  philosophical  and  religious. 
Even  now  I  am  regarded  by  some  Comtists  pur  sang  as  a  pro- 


MY  MEMORIES:  1837-1890  15 

fane  amateur,  a  schismatic,  and  a  Gallic.  And  while  cynics 
outside  accuse  me  of  fanaticism,  some  of  my  fellow-believers 
suspect  me  of  heresy. 

LITERARY  LIFE 

I  hope  that  I  am  not  expected  to  say  anything  about 
literary  methods,  habits,  or  theories.  I  no  more  pretend  to  be 
a  man  of  letters  than  I  pretend  to  be  a  politician.  I  have 
even  less  of  the  man  of  letters  about  me  than  of  the  politician. 
In  matters  literary,  I  have  but  one  advice  to  give.  Keep  out 
of  literature,  at  least  till  you  feel  ready  to  burst.  Never  write 
a  line  except  out  of  a  sense  of  duty,  or  with  any  other  object 
save  that  of  getting  it  off  your  mind.  About  literature  I 
have  nothing  to  say.  I  have  always  felt  myself  more  or  less 
of  an  amateur.  Nor  do  I  remember  to  have  wasted  an  hour 
in  thinking  about  style,  or  about  conditions  of  literary  success. 
As  I  have  sought  to  teach  many  things,  and  have  fought  hard 
for  many  opinions,  I  have  tried  to  put  what  I  had  to  say  as 
well  as  I  could.  But  as  I  have  always  some  practical  object 
in  view,  my  eagerness  keeps  me  from  spending  thought  over 
the  mode  of  saying  it.  Mark  Pattison,  of  Oxford,  used  to 
say  to  a  pupil  who  happens  to  be  now  both  a  brilliant  writer 
and  a  leading  statesman:  "My  good  friend,  you  are  not  the 
stuff  of  which  men  of  letters  are  made.  You  want  to  make 
people  do  something,  or  you  want  to  teach  something ;  that 
is  fatal  to  pure  literature."  I  am  afraid  that  I  have  a  dash  of 
the  same  vice,  and  something  of  the  Jacobin  within  me 
murmurs  that  "the  Republic  has  no  need  of  men  of  letters." 
Once  or  twice  in  my  life  I  have  taken  up  the  pen  in  a  vein 
of  literary  exercise  —  I  began  this  very  paper  in  that  mood  — 
as  a  man  turns  to  a  game  of  billiards  or  to  gardening  after 
his  day's  work.  But  the  demon  soon  rises,  and  I  find  myself 


l6  MEMORIES    AND   THOUGHTS 

in  earnest  trying  to  bring  men  over  to  our  side.  It  is  hopeless 
to  make  a  man  of  letters  out  of  a  temper  like  that.  Literature 
is  art,  and  the  artist  should  never  preach. 

It  was  lucky  for  me  that  I  recognised  this  defect  at  once ; 
for  the  critics  have  made  a  dead  set  at  Positivism,  and  to  be 
known  as  its  advocate  is  to  be  turned  into  the  literary  world 
like  a  dog  suspected  of  rabies.  All  my  formal  Positivist 
teaching  is  necessarily  gratuitous ;  and  as  I  have  had  to  print 
and  to  circulate  most  of  my  pieces  at  my  own  cost,  I  have 
long  found  literature  not  so  much  a  profession  as  an  expensive 
taste.  I  was  nearly  thirty  before  I  published  anything  at  all. 
My  first  article  happened  to  be  on  "Essays  and  Reviews," 
and  I  was  not  so  foolish  as  to  attribute  the  interest  it  aroused 
to  anything  beyond  the  accident  of  the  subject  and  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  time.  I  did  not  pursue  literature  as  a 
calling.  For  ten  years  I  occasionally  entered  into  discussions 
on  political,  industrial,  or  philosophical  questions,  but  I  did 
not  use  my  pen  professionally.  My  profession  was  the 
law,  the  practice  of  which  I  followed  for  some  fifteen  years 
without  great  zest  and  without  any  ambition.  I  afterward 
taught  jurisprudence  as  professor;  and,  having  inherited  a 
modest  fortune,  which  I  have  had  no  desire  to  increase,  I 
eventually  withdrew  to  my  present  occupation  of  urging  on 
my  neighbours  opinions  which  meet,  I  must  admit,  with  but 
moderate  acceptance. 

MELIORIST  AT  LAST 

Here  ends  my  confession,  which  I  am  told  my  American 
readers  wish  me  to  make.  As  they  know  nothing  about  me 
but  my  name,  they  have  a  right  to  ask  me  how  I  came  by  the 
bundle  of  opinions  with  which  I  am  credited.  I  have  no 
objections  to  tell  them,  though  one  cannot  do  so  without  an 


MY  MEMORIES:  1837-1890  17 

abominable  dose  of  talking  about  one's  self.  As  I  look  back 
over  my  life,  which,  though  not  yet  a  long  one,  has  been  passed 
in  a  very  critical  time,  I  am  struck  with  this  —  the  essential 
persistence  of  the  social  organism  in  the  midst  of  universal 
change.  Every  aspect  and  appliance  of  practical  life  has  been 
transformed  within  my  own  memory;  and  yet,  in  all  its 
essential  conditions,  human  life  remains  the  same.  Rail- 
ways, telegraphs,  the  post,  journalism,  steamships,  electricity, 
the  doubling  of  the  population,  and  the  shrinking  of  the  planet, 
do  not  really  change  society.  My  children  live  much  as  I 
did  fifty  years  ago.  And  all  these  revolutions  in  the  material 
world  but  slightly  affect  the  moral  and  the  mental  world. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  greatest  empires,  the  most  rooted 
institutions,  the  oldest  prejudices,  the  most  sacred  beliefs, 
crumble  almost  without  warning ;  and  what  was  a  wild  para- 
dox yesterday  is  a  harmless  truism  to-morrow.  I  have  seen 
the  downfall  of  so  many  habits,  ideas,  laws,  and  systems  of 
thought,  that  I  can  imagine  no  reform  and  no  new  dispen- 
sation as  beyond  our  reasonable  hope.  And  yet  again, 
amidst  endless,  rapid,  universal  change,  I  find  that  the  vital 
essence  of  things  remains.  Creeds  die ;  but  not  the  spiritual 
life  they  nourished.  Societies  suffer  revolution;  but  the 
living  elements  do  not  greatly  vary.  Our  knowledge  enlarges, 
our  formulas  change,  our  methods  grow ;  but  everywhere  it  is 
growth,  not  destruction.  What  I  have  witnessed  is  not  really 
revolution :  it  is  normal  evolution.  The  cells  and  germs  are 
forever  in  perpetual  movement.  The  organism  —  Human- 
ity —  remains,  and  lives  the  life  of  unbroken  sequence. 

POSTSCRIPT,  1906 

The  sixteen  years  that  have  passed  since  I  set  down  my 
experiences  for  an  American  public  have  witnessed  memo- 


l8  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

rable  changes  in  our  own  land  and  in  the  world — a  new  reign, 
many  obstinate  wars,  the  recasting  of  international  relations, 
the  new  East,  the  transformation  of  Russia,  the  filling  up  the 
vacant  parts  of  our  planet,  the  growth  of  Democracy,  and 
Socialism,  and  an  enormous  expansion  of  Wealth,  Trade,  and 
Mechanical  inventions.  But  I  see  no  cause  to  vary  the 
language  with  which  I  closed  the  foregoing  paper.  It  is 
still  evolution,  not  social  revolution.  Dogmas  are  con- 
tinually melting  away,  but  the  essentials  of  religious  feeling 
remain  healthy  and  active.  And  in  spite  of  the  appalling 
bloodshed  of  some  recent  wars  and  the  delirious  multiplica- 
tion of  armaments,  there  may  be  heard  deep  down  in  the 
murmurs  of  the  masses  and  in  the  aspirations  of  the  wise,  a 
heart-felt  yearning  for  peace  and  international  friendship. 

As  for  myself,  I  am  not  conscious  of  having  seriously 
altered  my  convictions  or  my  habits.  It  is  a  curious  accident 
that  I  can  distinctly  recall  ah1  the  leading  events  and  nearly  all 
the  famous  persons  of  the  sixty-four  years  of  the  reign  of 
Queen  Victoria,  and  have  witnessed  all  the  State  ceremo- 
nies from  her  Coronation  to  her  Burial,  as  well  as  the  public 
funerals  of  the  men  illustrious  in  politics,  literature,  and  art. 
Visits  from  time  to  time  to  Paris,  Rome,  Berlin,  Holland,  and 
the  United  States,  and  again  to  Athens,  Constantinople,  and 
Egypt,  enabled  me  to  enlarge  my  understanding  of  public 
affairs,  and  to  see  something  of  those  who  administer  them. 
Four  years  spent  at  the  London  County  Council  gave  me  some 
inkling  of  the  difficulties  of  municipal  business.  After  a 
service  of  twenty-five  years  I  resigned  my  tasks  as  President 
of  the  English  Positivist  Committee,  and,  being  now  in  my 
seventy-fifth  year,  I  have  for  some  years  past  withdrawn 
from  London  and  live  in  a  quiet  country,  occupied  with  my 
books,  my  garden,  and  in  stringing  together  the  loose  ends 
of  a  rather  scattered  activity. 


MY  MEMORIES:  1837-1890  19 

I  can  hardly  now  claim  that  detachment  from  letters, 
which  was  true  enough  in  1890.  Since  then,  having  quitted 
the  legal  profession,  I  have  published  a  variety  of  books,  and 
have  even  committed  myself  to  what  my  friends  tell  me  is 
the  senile  weakness  of  a  romance  and  then  a  tragedy.  The 
habit  of  writing,  like  other  indulgences,  is  apt  to  grow  upon 
one;  and,  as  I  gradually  withdrew  from  active  affairs,  I 
did  not  resist  the  temptation  to  give  form  to  occasional 
thoughts,  memories,  and  fancies.  Some  few  of  these  I  now 
offer  for  a  leisure  hour  to  the  general  reader. 

HAWKHURST,  1906. 


THE    BURIAL   OF  TENNYSON 

1892 

As  the  throng  which  gathered  to  the  funeral  of  our  great 
poet  slowly  melted  away  from  the  Abbey,  the  same  thought 
was  borne  in  upon  many  of  us  —  Have  we  then  no  poet  left 
in  England  ?  The  passing  away  of  a  great  figure  which  for 
two  generations  has  filled  the  mind  and  speech  of  men  is 
always  wont  to  leave  this  impression  of  a  void.  Forty  years 
ago,  when  Wellington  was  laid  beside  Nelson  in  St.  Paul's, 
Tennyson  groaned  out :  "The  last  great  Englishman  is  low." 
And  as  we  left  the  Laureate  alone  with  his  peers  in  Poets' 
Corner,  there  rose  to  a  hundred  lips  the  murmur:  "The  last 
English  poet  is  gone  !"  It  was  a  natural  feeling,  an  unthink- 
ing impulse;  perhaps  a  blind  mistake. 

It  is  inevitable  that  we  should  seek  at  times  like  this  to 
compare,  to  judge,  to  anticipate  the  verdict  of  our  posterity. 
But  the  impulse  should  be  resisted:  it  is  futile  and  worse 
than  useless.  We  are  far  too  near  to  judge  Tennyson  truly 
or  even  to  decide  if  he  has  left  a  successor.  The  permanent 
place  of  a  poet  depends  on  his  one  or  two,  three  or  four,  grand- 
est bursts,  and  his  inferior  work  is  forgotten.  So  too  the 
poetry  which  startles  and  delights  its  immediate  generation 
is  almost  always  much  weaker  than  the  poetry  which  mellows 
like  wine  as  generations  succeed.  It  needed  for  Dante  five 
entire  centuries  before  his  real  greatness  was  admitted;  it 
needed  two  centuries  for  Shakespeare. 

20 


THE   BURIAL   OF  TENNYSON  21 

It  would  be  strange  if  English  poetry  were  to  close  its 
glorious  roll  with  the  name  of  Tennyson.  For  three  hundred 
years  now  our  race  has  never  failed  to  find  a  fine  poet  "to 
stand  before  the  Lord."  Shakespeare  had  done  immortal 
things  while  Spenser  still  lived.  Ben  Jonson  survived  until 
the  early  lyrics  of  Milton.  Dryden  was  in  full  career  when 
Paradise  Lost  was  published,  and  when  Dryden  died  Pope 
was  already  "lisping  in  numbers."  Pope  survived  till 
Gray  was  a  poet  and  Cowper  a  youth;  and  with  Burns, 
Coleridge,  Wordsworth,  Byron,  and  Shelley,  the  list  comes 
down  to  the  poet  whom  we  have  just  buried.  In  these  three 
centuries,  from  the  Faerie  Queene  until  to-day,  the  only  gap 
is  for  the  ten  years  which  separate  the  Rape  of  the  Lock  from 
the  death  of  Dryden.  But  at  Spenser's  death,  who  really 
knew  what  Shakespeare  was,  and  at  that  of  Byron  and  Shelley, 
who  thought  of  Tennyson  as  their  successor? 

They  who  were  present  at  the  burial  in  the  Abbey  had 
opened  to  them,  as  in  a  vision,  some  glimpse  down  into  the 
depths  of  the  poetry,  the  persistence,  and  solemnity  of  English 
life  —  into  that  deep  under-current  which  flows  far  below  our 
gross  and  common  everyday  life.  What  a  flood  of  memories 
from  ancient  history,  what  a  halo  of  heroism,  art,  and  devo- 
tion, consecrate  that  spot !  A  church  built  in  the  age  of  the 
Crusades,  with  foundations  and  memorials,  tombs  and 
crypts,  that  go  back  to  the  Saxon  kings,  in  the  history  of  which 
Agincourt,  the  Civil  Wars,  the  Reformation,  and  the  Common- 
wealth are  mere  episodes,  and  wherein  even  three  centuries 
of  a  long  succession  of  poets  form  but  the  later  chapters  — 
such  a  building  seems  to  hold  the  very  heart  of  the  English 
people.  Statesmen,  artists,  churchmen,  poets,  men  of  science 
and  men  of  business,  all  schools,  creeds,  and  interests,  came 
that  day  together;  sect,  party,  and  rivalry  ceased  to  divide 
men  —  all  were  Englishmen  come  to  do  honour  to  their  poet. 


22  MEMORIES  AND    THOUGHTS 

There  was  no  parade,  no  eloquence,  nothing  of  unusual  show ; 
no  trumpets,  helmet,  or  plume,  no  "guard  of  honour"  or 
officials  in  uniform  or  robes ;  there  was  no  concourse  of 
elaborate  music  or  feats  of  epideictic  oratory.  It  was  the 
daily  service  of  the  Abbey  choir,  the  ordinary  burial,  with  no 
feature  of  it  uncommon,  except  the  great  Union  Jack  spread 
out  upon  the  coffin.  Not  a  word  was  spoken  outside  the 
Prayer-Book ;  nothing  was  done  which  is  not  done  every  day 
when  honoured  men  are  buried.  Merely  this  —  that  the 
vast  cathedral  and  the  square  in  which  it  stands  were  filled 
with  silent  and  eager  masses,  that  around  the  coffin  were 
gathered  men  of  every  type  of  activity  and  thought  which 
England  holds,  that  the  whole  English-speaking  race  was 
represented  and  was  deeply  stirred. 

In  the  whole  world  there  is  nothing  left  which  in  continuity 
and  poetry  of  association  can  be  put  beside  a  burial  in  our 
Abbey.  It  is  doubtful  if  anything  recorded  in  history  ever 
matched  it  altogether  in  the  volume  and  beauty  of  its  impres- 
siveness,  or  ever  before  so  mysteriously  blended  the  sense  of 
antiquity  with  the  sense  of  life.  For  there  is  nothing  arti- 
ficial, nothing  of  mere  antiquarianism,  in  the  Englishman's 
love  for  the  Abbey  and  its  sacred  dust.  The  common  sea- 
man in  Nelson's  fleets  felt  it;  the  American  citizen  feels  it 
more  intensely  often  than  the  Londoner ;  they  feel  it  in  their 
hearts  at  home  in  Africa  and  in  Australasia;  to  the  whole 
English-speaking  people  the  associations  of  the  Abbey  are 
both  profoundly  historic  and  vividly  modern.  The  Abbey 
suggests  to  us  all  three  things  in  equal  force :  the  Past,  Poetry, 
Living  Work.  That  is  the  true  strength  of  England,  which  to 
the  German  is  a  metaphysical  enigma  and  to  the  Frenchman 
seems  an  amazing  paradox  —  that  below  our  eternal  money- 
grabbing  and  vulgar  routine  there  is  a  sense  among  us  that 
the  Past  and  the  Future  are  really  one,  and  that  we  must  be 


THE   BURIAL  OF  TENNYSON  23 

the  link  between  the  two.  That  makes  the  most  material 
and  most  conventional  of  European  nations  at  bottom  the 
most  capable  of  great  poetry. 

His  SUCCESSORS 

So  let  us  not  despair  of  one  day  finding  a  poet  worthy  to 
carry  on  the  torch.  It  is  plain  that  no  one  is  yet  acknowledged 
as  the  real  equal  of  Tennyson.  But  we  may  have  such  a  one 
among  us  even  now.  Although  for  three  centuries  the  suc- 
cession of  English  poets  has  never  failed,  there  have  been  some 
brief  periods  when  the  most  discerning  eye  must  have  failed 
to  recognise  the  man.  When  Dryden  died  there  must  have 
been  searchings  of  heart  until  the  star  of  Pope  rose  above 
the  horizon.  And  when  Byron  died  young,  like  Keats  and 
Shelley  before  him,  and  Coleridge,  the  poet,  had  long  sub- 
sided into  interminable  monologues,  neither  Campbell,  nor 
Scott,  nor  Southey,  nor  even  Wordsworth,  could  be  said  to 
hold  the  poetic  field.  Wordsworth's,  indeed,  is  a  very  strik- 
ing case.  His  general  reputation  as  a  poet  was  hardly  estab- 
lished till  more  than  forty  years  after  his  first  poems  were 
published,  and  he  was  more  than  seventy  before  he  received 
any  public  honour.  And  it  may  well  be  that  we  are  all 
blind  now,  and  that  a  new  Tennyson,  another  Shelley  or 
Milton,  is  in  our  midst,  did  we  only  know  it.  There  is  an 
element  of  hope  perhaps  in  numbers.  The  English-speaking 
race  is  to-day  quite  three  times  as  numerous  as  it  was  at  the 
death  of  Byron,  twelve  times  as  numerous  as  it  was  at  the 
death  of  Dryden,  and  those  who  can  and  who  do  write  verses 
may  be  forty  or  fifty  times  as  many.  So  the  field  is  vastly 
larger. 

But,  alas !  in  poetry  numbers  count  for  much  less  than  in 
elections  and  other  practical  affairs.  Indeed,  in  poetry, 


24  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

numbers  and  genius  seem  almost  to  stand  in  inverse  ratios. 
When  Shakespeare  produced  his  plays,  there  were  certainly 
not  half  a  million  persons  living  who  could  write  pure  English ; 
and  when  the  Iliad  was  first  chanted  at  a  festival,  there  was 
no  man  living  who  could  write  his  name.  There  are  now  at 
least  sixty  millions  who  can  write  our  language,  and  of  these 
some  millions,  we  may  be  sure,  in  public  or  in  secret,  com- 
pose lines  that  they  fondly  believe  to  be  verse.  What !  not 
one  prime  poet  in  some  millions  of  versifiers  ?  We  do  not  see 
him  yet !  Neither  Tennyson,  Hugo,  Heine,  nor  Longfellow 
has  left  any  recognised  equal  and  successor. 

The  strange  part  of  it  is  that  there  never  was  an  age  when 
so  great  a  quantity  of  very  excellent  verse  was  produced  as 
in  our  own.  There  can  be  no  doubt  about  it.  We  have 
to-day  scores  of  elegant  poets  and  hundreds  of  volumes  of 
really  graceful  verse.  Of  educated  men  and  women,  at- 
least  one  in  three  could  turn  out  a  passable  lyric  or  so,  far 
better  than  the  stuff  published  as  poetry  in  the  age  of  Pope, 
or  Johnson,  or  Southey.  There  are  not  so  many  true  poets, 
perhaps,  as  there  were  in  the  lifetime  of  Spenser  and  of  Shake- 
speare. But  it  may  be  truly  said  that  at  no  period  in  the  long 
history  of  English  poetry  has  it  been  so  free  from  affectation, 
mannerism,  false  taste,  and  conventional  commonplace. 
Since  verse  began  there  has  never  been  so  high,  so  pure  a 
level  of  third-rate  verse.  There  are  a  dozen  writers  whose 
exquisite  technique  makes  that  of  Dryden  or  Byron  look  quite 
careless  and  that  of  Pope  monotonous,  and  there  are  at  least 
a  hundred  writers  who  far  surpass  the  imitators  of  Dryden, 
Pope,  or  Byron. 

That  perhaps  is  the  ominous  side  of  our  high  poetic  stand- 
ard. If  out  of  such  a  mass  of  graceful  verse  we  find  no 
really  great  poetry,  it  would  look  as  if  there  were  something 
amiss.  Can  it  be  that  we  all  think  too  much  of  this  graceful 


THE  BURIAL  OF  TENNYSON  25 

form  that  so  many  can  reach  ?  Is  it  that  we  are  all,  writers 
and  readers  alike,  under  the  glamour  of  a  style  which  is  not 
the  less  a  "fashion"  by  being  subtly  harmonious  and  severely 
subdued?  As  the  poet  said,  "All  can  raise  the  flower  now, 
for  all  have  got  the  seed."  Poetry  is  raised  too  much  now 
from  another's  seed,  from  a  single  seed,  from  what  is  indeed 
a  highly  specialised  seed.  And  poetry  mayhap  has  begun  to 
suffer  from  the  maladies  which  follow  upon  "breeding  in- 
and-in":  rickety  bones,  transparent  and  etiolated  skins, 
exquisitely  refined  impotence.  Neither  readers  nor  writers 
intend  it  or  even  know  it,  but  we  are  all  looking  for  echoes  of 
the  Idylls  or  In  Memoriam :  it  becomes  our  test  and  standard ; 
the  poet  is  afraid  to  let  himself  go,  lest  he  be  thought  Byronic 
and  impatient  of  the  "slow  mechanic  exercise"  which  not 
only  soothes  pain  but  produces  poetry.  No  age  that  ever 
fell  under  the  spell  of  a  style  knew  it  at  the  time.  Their  con- 
temporaries could  not  hear  the  eternal  jingle  in  the  papistic 
couplet  when  Pope's  imitators  produced  volumes.  People 
who  listened  to  songs  "in  the  manner  of  Tom  Moore"  were 
deaf  to  the  doggerel  of  the  words.  Dryden  in  his  day  was 
the  ruin  of  the  poetasters  who  tried  to  catch  his  swing.  So 
was  Pope  the  ruin  of  his  followers :  they  caught  his  measured 
cadence;  they  could  not  catch  his  wit,  his  sparkle,  and  his 
sense.  Dr.  Johnson  latinised  the  English  language  for  a 
whole  generation.  And  perhaps  the  perfections  of  Tenny- 
son's art  are  among  the  causes  that  we  have  no  perfect  poetry. 


Perfection  of  form  is  often,  nay,  is  usually,  a  snare  to  its 
own  generation.  Raffaelle  ruined  "the  school  of  Raffaelle," 
and  so  did  Guido  ruin  the  school  of  Guido.  Intense  atten- 
tion to  form,  especially  to  a  form  which  is  capable  of  a  high 


26  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

degree  of  imitation,  too  often  leads  to  insipidity.  How 
common  now  in  the  scholastic  world  is  the  art  of  elegant  Latin 
verse !  Our  schools  and  colleges  can  show  thousands  of 
"copies"  of  faultless  elegiacs  and  sonorous  hexameters,  with 
fewer  flaws  than  you  might  pick  in  Statius  and  Claudian. 
But  how  dull,  how  lifeless,  how  artificial  are  these  prize  com- 
positions if  we  read  them  as  poetry  !  Faultless,  yes ;  but  we 
wish  the  author  would  now  and  then  break  loose  into  a  sole- 
cism, and  but  for  ten  lines  forget  Ovid  and  Virgil.  Much  of 
our  very  graceful,  very  thoughtful,  very  virginal  poetry  is 
little  but  "exercises"  in  English  verse  composition  to  the 
tune,  not  of  Ovid's  Tristia,  but  of  In  Memoriam. 

Now,  the  exquisite  jewelry  of  Tennyson's  method,  subtle 
as  it  is,  is  imitable  up  to  a  certain  point,  just  as  Virgil's 
hexameter  is  imitable  up  to  a  certain  point,  and  for  the  same 
reason.  Both  are  the  poetry  of  intense  culture,  inspired  by 
the  worship  of  form.  I  take  a  stanza  typical  of  this  art  — 
a  stanza  not  surpassed  in  melody  by  any  poetry  of  this  century 
—  a  stanza  which  is  wonderfully  prophetic  of  the  poet  him- 
self and  his  enduring  influence : 

His  memory  long  will  live  alone 
In  all  our  hearts,  as  mournful  light 

That  broods  above  the  fallen  sun 
And  dwells  in  heaven  half  the  night. 

That  is  simply  perfect :  a  noble  thought,  an  exquisite  simile, 
a  true  and  splendid  analogy  between  Nature  and  Man,  the 
simplicity  as  of  marble,  and  a  music  which  Shelley  only  has 
equalled.  Yet  it  is  imitable  up  to  a  measure :  we  can  analyse 
the  music,  we  can  mark  the  gliding  labials,  the  pathetic  ca- 
dence in  the  "mournful  light"  and  "dwells  in  heaven," 
the  largo  in  "broods  above."  It  is  beautiful,  but  it  is  imi- 
table, as  Milton  and  Shakespeare  are  not  imitable.  Take 
Milton's  — 


THE    BURIAL   OF  TENNYSON  27 

He  must  not  float  upon  his  watery  bier 
Unwept,  and  welter  to  the  parching  wind, 
Without  the  meed  of  some  melodious  tear. 

Or  again,  "that  last  infirmity  of  noble  mind,"  or  "Laughter 
holding  both  his  sides,"  or  "thy  rapt  soul  sitting  in  thine 
eyes."  When  Shakespeare  says  "the  multitudinous  seas 

incarnadine,"  or 

We  are  such  stuff 

As  dreams  are  made  on,  and  our  little  life 
Is  rounded  with  a  sleep  :  — 

this  is  not  imitable.  Both  thought  and  phrase  are  incal- 
culable. No  other  brain  could  imagine  them;  once  heard 
they  are  indelible,  unalterable,  unapproachable.  It  is  not 
the  music  which  rivets  our  attention  first,  but  the  thought. 
The  form  matches  the  idea,  but  the  idea  transcends  the  form. 
Poetic  form,  we  are  often  told,  must  be  "inevitable."  True, 
most  true.  But  poetic  thought  also  must  be  incalculable. 
For  this  reason  the  greatest  poets  who  clothed  incalculable 
thought  in  inevitable  perfection  of  form  —  Milton,  Shake- 
speare, Dante,  ^Eschylus,  Homer  —  never  misled  their  genera- 
tion into  imitation,  never  founded  "  a  school."  We  shall  have 
a  poet  worthy  to  succeed  Tennyson  when  we  no  longer  have 
Tennyson  on  the  brain :  when  we  are  all  less  absorbed  in  the 
technical  mastery  of  the  instrument,  and  are  intent  on  the 
great  human  message  which  the  instrument  merely  trans- 
mutes into  music. 


THE   BURIAL   OF   RENAN 

IT  was  passing  strange  that  France  should  lose  her  greatest 
writer  of  prose  within  a  few  days  of  the  blow  by  which  Eng- 
land lost  her  greatest  writer  in  verse.  And  some  friends  of 
both  were  present  at  the  funeral  in  the  Pantheon  and  in  the 
Abbey.  It  was  an  eloquent  contrast,  suggestive  of  profound 
differences  in  our  national  idiosyncrasies  and  condition. 
The  burial  of  Renan  was  a  great  ceremony  of  state,  with 
military  and  official  pomp,  academic  and  bureaucratic  dig- 
nity, pageantry,  oratory,  and  public  consecration  in  a  civil 
monument  now  for  the  third  time  wrenched  from  the  Church. 
The  burial  of  the  English  poet  was  a  simple  and  private  act 
of  mourning  to  which  a  multitude  came  in  spontaneous  sym- 
pathy. It  had  no  dignity  but  that  which  was  given  it  by  the 
place  —  by  the  historic  Past,  by  Poetry  itself,  and  by  at  least 
the  pathos  of  the  old  faith.  France  has  broken  with  her 
Past,  with  the  old  religion,  and  she  has  no  continuous  poetic 
traditions.  France  is  deliberately  pushing  forth  on  the  ocean 
to  find  a  New  World.  Nor  has  any  one  of  this  generation 
done  more  to  stimulate  this  movement  than  Ernest  Renan. 
The  founders  of  New  Worlds  cannot  look  to  robe  themselves 
in  all  the  poetry  and  solemnities  of  the  Old  Worlds,  but 
they  may  bear  within  them  the  Life  and  the  Future. 

Ernest  Renan  was  a  consummate  master  of  the  French 
language ;  and  masters  of  language  exercise  a  power  in  France 
which  is  not  known  to  other  nations  and  which  is  hardly  to 
be  understood  in  some.  He  was  a  scholar,  a  man  of  learning, 
a  subtle  and  ingenious  critic.  With  his  learning,  his  versa- 

28 


THE   BURIAL   OF   RENAN  2Q 

tility,  his  romantic  colouring,  and  his  exquisite  grace  of  form, 
it  would  have  been  singular  if  he  had  not  acquired  great  influ- 
ence. It  was,  of  course,  the  influence  of  the  critic :  the  sol- 
vent, dispersive,  indefinite  influence  of  the  man  of  letters  who 
hints  his  doubts  and  hesitates  his  creed.  Renan  assuredly 
had  no  creed,  needed  none,  and  was  mentally  incapable  of 
conceiving  himself  as  having  a  creed.  I  knew  him  person- 
ally, and  have  heard  him  expound  his  ideas  in  conversation 
and  in  lectures  and  also  in  private  interviews.  I  do  not  be- 
lieve that  there  was  left  in  his  mind  an  infinitesimal  residuum 
of  dogma,  old  or  new.  As  the  Cambridge  scholar  said,  when 
he  was  asked  to  define  his  view  as  to  the  Third  Person  in  the 
Trinity,  Renan  "would  not  deny  that  there  might  be  a  sort  of 
a  something"  behind  all  that  he  knew  and  all  that  interested 
him  so  keenly.  But  for  himself,  his  whole  activity  of  brain 
was  absorbed  in  the  romantic  side  of  history,  in  the  lyrical 
aspect  of  religion,  in  the  decorative  types  of  philosophy. 

Ideas  of  such  mordant  potency  have  seldom  been  clothed 
in  a  mantle  of  more  spiritual  religiosity  of  external  hue. 
One  can  fancy  the  terror  that  he  once  struck  into  the  tender 
Catholic  spirit  who  for  the  first  time  heard  these  ghastly 
doubts  issue  forth,  as  it  were,  from  a  dreamy  patristic  hagi- 
ology.  It  was  as  when  the  Margaret  of  Faust  kneels  down  in 
her  agony  before  the  image  of  the  Madonna  and  hears  her 
prayer  answered  by  the  strident  mockery  of  Mephistopheles. 
But  the  tender  Catholic  spirit  is  grown  stouter  now  and  is 
inured  to  many  things.  We  can  see  how  Renan,  so  negative 
himself,  so  vague,  and  so  allusive,  is  leading  on  to  a  knowledge 
more  systematic  than  his  own,  more  positive,  more  definite 
and  real.  He  has  been  an  influence  in  his  generation,  even 
though  he  hardly  knew  whither  he  was  tending,  and  though 
such  ignorance  or  mistiness  appeared  to  him  to  be  the  true 
philosophic  nirvana  to  which  only  the  wise  attain. 


30  MEMORIES   AND    THOUGHTS 

We  are  now  in  the  age  of  mist.  We  are  becoming  very 
"  children  of  the  mist " ;  for  the  one  dogma  that  seems  destined 
to  survive  is  the  duty  of  being  undogmatic.  We  have  all 
learned  to  say  with  the  poet,  "Our  little  systems  have  their 
day";  with  the  critic  we  all  believe  in  "the  power,  not  our- 
selves, that  makes  for  righteousness."  That  is  comprehen- 
sive, large,  suggestive.  The  definite,  perhaps  the  intelligible, 
is  limited :  limitations  mean  narrowness,  hardness,  slavery, 
somewhere.  "  O  friends,"  cries  the  popular  preacher  of  to-day, 
be  he  layman  or  cleric,  "let  our  spirits  be  free,  let  us  seek  to 
know,  not  to  decide ;  to  analyse,  not  to  believe.  Away  with 
the  system-mongers  and  the  slaves  of  any  'doxy.'  Let  us 
sip  truth  from  every  flower  and  leave  the  drones  to  brood  over 
the  honey !"  The  cultivated  mind  is  becoming  incapable  of 
giving  final  assent  to  anything  definite.  It  sees  something 
in  everything  and  error  only  in  attempts  to  give  that  something 
a  form.  Of  this  philosophy  and  religion  of  the  Great  May-be, 
Monsieur  Ernest  Renan  is  the  chief  of  the  apostles;  he  is 
Peter  and  Paul  and  Doubting  Thomas  all  in  one  very  charm- 
ing writer  of  French  prose. 


SIR  A.   LYALL'S  "TENNYSON" 

1903 

ALTHOUGH  ten  years  have  passed  since  Tennyson's  death 
and  half  a  century  since  the  appearance  of  some  of  his  best 
pieces,  his  latest  biographer  can  claim  with  truth  that  he  still 
holds  the  field  in  poetry,  that  none  has  yet  come  forth  even  to 
challenge  his  crown.  We  may  take  the  wisely  balanced 
estimate  of  his  complete  works  by  Sir  Alfred  Lyall  as  that 
which  will  prove  the  final  and  authoritative  judgment  of  the 
Twentieth  Century  on  the  supreme  poet  of  the  Victorian  Era 

Sir  Alfred  is  himself  a  poet  of  distinction,  with  more  than 
a  tincture  of  philosophy  and  scholarship,  and,  withal,  a  man 
whose  life  has  been  passed  in  the  government  of  men.  Here, 
then,  we  have  a  judgment  of  our  great  poet,  at  once  subtle, 
sympathetic,  and  authoritative.  Agreeing  as  it  does  in  sub- 
stance with  the  brief  sketch  that  I  ventured  to  put  out  two 
years  ago,  I  propose  to  examine  it  in  detail  and  to  add  further 
criticism  of  my  own. 

As  do  all  judicious  men,  Lyall  seizes  at  once  on  the  domi- 
nant note  of  Tennyson's  poetry  —  his  supreme  mastery  of 
form,  especially  in  all  modes  of  lyric  art.  He  rightly  calls 
the  Laureate  "an  essentially  lyric  poet."  In  speaking  of 
In  Memoriam,  he  says :  "  His  sure  and  never-failing  mastery 
of  poetic  diction  carries  him  through  this  long  monotone  with 
a  high  and  even  flight."  I  hardly  find  LyalFs  cooler  phrases 
quite  warm  enough  to  express  the  enthusiasm  I  feel  myself 
for  what  I  have  called  his  "unfaltering  truth  of  form,"  "his 

31 


y.  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

infallible  mastery  of  language ";"  the  rhythm,  phrasing,  and 
articulation  are  so  entirely  faultless,   so  exquisitely  clear, 
melodious,  and  sure."    No  doubt,  Lyall  uses  language  much 
of  the  same  kind.     But  nothing  satisfies  me  unless  we  place 
Tennyson  quite  alone,  unapproachable,  in  an  order  by  him- 
self, amongst  the  Victorian  poets,  if  only  by  virtue  of  this 
unique  perfection  of  style.    No  man  honours  more  than  I 
do  the  intellectual  power  of  Browning,  the  serene  medita- 
tions of  Arnold.     But  perfect  poetry  must  be  perfect  in  form. 
Almost  the  only  estimate  on  which  Lyall  seems  to  be  open 
to  question  is  in  placing  Tennyson's  zenith  too  soon  in  his 
career.     To  rank  the  early  volumes  as  containing  "some  of 
the  most  exquisite  poetry  that  he  ever  wrote,"  so  that  "The 
Lady  of  Shalott "  is  an  "  example  of  his  genius  at  a  period  when 
he  had  brought  the  form  and  conception  of  his  poetry  up  to  a 
point    which    he    never    afterwards    surpassed,"   -  this    is 
surely  anticipating  things.     To  tell  us  that  "his  genius  had 
reached  its  zenith  fifty  years  before  death  extinguished  it," 
—  that  is  to  say,  in  1842  —  is  too  hasty  a  view.     It  means 
that  neither  in  form  nor  in  conception  did  The  Princess,  or 
In  Memoriam,  or  Maud,  or  the  Idylls,  rise  to  a  higher  level 
of  perfection  than  "Mariana,"  "The  Lady  of  Shalott,"  and 
"The  Palace  of  Art."     Certainly,  these  lovely  lyrics  of  1832 
and  1842  have  abundance  of  Tennyson's  peculiar  charm; 
and  it  is  to  us  to-day  wonderful  that  critics  and  public  failed 
at  once  to  see  all  that  they  heralded  to  come.     But  to  say 
that  Tennyson  therein  had  reached  his  zenith,  that  he  never 
afterward  surpassed  them,  is  to  do  him  scant  justice. 

"The  Lady  of  Shalott"  is  indeed  an  exquisite  poem,  full 
of  imagination  and  colour,  but  the  riper  and  more  pathetic 
"Lancelot  and  Elaine"  is  grander  in  art  as  well  as  more 
powerful  in  its  human  realism.  And  though  the  versification 
of  the  early  poem  is  both  subtle  and  musical,  it  has  weak 


SIR  A.  LYALL'S  "TENNYSON"  33 

points  such  as  Tennyson's  more  finished  poem  would  avoid. 
The  rhymes  are  not  at  all  faultless.  Even  if  we  allow  that 
license  which  Tennyson  constantly  asserts  —  as  of  "two" 
rhyming  with  "true,"  "barley"  with  "cheerly"  —  the  license 
is  a  fault  where  it  requires  a  mispronunciation  of  a  word 
according  to  a  cockneyism  or  a  vulgarism.  To  make  "girls" 
rhyme  with  "churls"  suggests  the  speech  of  the  streets. 
We  almost  expect  "gals."  I  doubt  if  " holy  "  is  a  good  rhyme 
to  "  wholly,"  for  the  two  words  are  identical  in  sound.  Some- 
what higher  up  the  rhyme  is  mere  repetition,  for  "river" 
rhymes  to  "river,"  and  also  to  "mirror,"  another  cockney 
mispronunciation. 

I  am  not  a  convert  to  the  new  theory  of  rhyme,  which 
would  make  any  general  similarity  of  sound  a  good  rhyme. 
No  doubt,  to  lay  down  a  rule  about  similar  spelling,  or  "  rhyme 
to  the  eye,"  is  absurd.  Rhyme  ought  to  mean  harmony  of 
sound,  where  the  words  are  correctly  pronounced.  What 
I  object  to,  is  a  homophony  obtained  by  a  vulgar  enunciation 
of  either  word,  as  "gurl"  and  "churl,"  or  "lidy"  and 
"tidy."  As  I  noted  formerly,  Tennyson's  "Six  Hundred" 
makes  a  false  rhyme  with  "blunder'd,"  "thunder'd," 
"wonder'd,"  "sunder'd,"  because  it  involves  our  pro- 
nouncing hundred  as  "hunderd,"  —  which  only  vulgar 
persons  say.  Any  one  who  knew  how  readily  the  poet  could 
slip  into  rustic  dialect  can  understand  how  he  made  the 
mistake. 

But  a  close  view  of  "The  Lady  of  Shalott"  will  show  us 
rhymes  and  phrases  which  are  certainly  short  of  the  "Ten- 
nysonian  perfection."  One  doubts  if  four  such  rhymes 
as  "early,"  "barley,"  "cheerly,"  "clearly,"  should  be 
immediately  followed  by  three  rhymes  so  close  in  sound  as 
"weary,"  "airy,"  "fairy."  No  doubt,  the  good  feUows 
who  towed  barges  down  to  Camelot  pronounced  barley  as 


34  MEMORIES  AND    THOUGHTS 

"bearly"  and  "weary"  as  "wairy,"  but  we  do  not  so  speak 
to-day  in  polite  society.     Nor  does  it  seem  like  Tennyson's 

best  to  write  — 

She  floated  by, 
.  .  .  between  the  houses  high. 

One  cannot  imagine  an  adjective  more  jejune  and  childish 
than  "houses  high."  No!  "The  Lady  of  Shalott"  is  a 
sweet  fantasy,  but  not  to  be  mentioned  in  the  same  breath 
with  "Come  into  the  Garden,  Maud,"  "Tears,  Idle  Tears." 
or  "Come  down,  O  Maid,"  "Old  Year,"  "Ring  out,  Wild 
Bells." 

Lyall  very  justly  praises  the  lovely  blank  verse  of  the 
classical  romances  and  the  Idylls,  and  justly  rebukes  the 
deaf  ears  of  the  orthodox  and  conventional  critics  of  the  old 
Quarterly  who  could  not  hear  it ;  but  he  does  not  note  that,  in 
power  and  majesty,  Tennyson  never  quite  reached  the 
level  of  Paradise  Lost,  and  some  rare  bursts  of  Wordsworth. 
"Ulysses"  and  the  original  "Morte  d'Arthur"  contain  the 
grandest  lines  of  heroic  metre  that  the  Laureate  ever  wrote. 
But  even  these  do  not  reach  the  diapason  of  the  "mighty- 
mouth'd  inventor  of  harmonies,"  with  his  swelling  organ- 
voice,  as  when  the  multitude  of  angels  cast  to  the  ground 
their  crowns  of  amarant  and  gold;  and  then,  taking  their 
golden  harps,  begin  their  sacred  song  with  the  words : 

Thee,  Father,  first  they  sung,  Omnipotent, 
Immutable,  Immortal,  Infinite, 
Eternal  King ;  thee,  Author  of  all  being, 
Fountain  of  Light,  thyself  invisible. 

This,  indeed,  is  the  only  English  heroic  verse  which  can  be 
set  beside  Homer. 

It  is  amusing  to  read  that  the  poet  specially  valued  himself 
on  his  "shortness,"  and  on  his  inexorable  rule  of  throwing 
away  hundreds  of  verses  that  he  judged  not  to  be  perfect. 


SIR  A.  LYALL'S   "TENNYSON"  35 

It  is  quite  true  that  he  suppressed  thousands  of  such  lines, 
and,  as  the  Memoir  shows  us,  with  invariable  judgment. 
But  as  to  "shortness,"  the  Works  even  now  comprise  some 
60,000  lines,  more  or  less  —  at  least  three  times  the  output  of 
Milton.  And  the  Poems,  with  few  exceptions,  would  be 
more  effective  if  they  were  not  so  long.  Even  the  "Two 
Voices"  suffers  by  being  in  150  stanzas,  when  one  hundred 
would  be  ample  for  the  argument,  vague  and  indecisive  as  it 
is.  Much  the  same  may  be  said  of  Maud,  of  the  Idylls,  and, 
lastly,  of  the  historical  dramas.  The  scheme,  the  intellectual 
motive,  the  form  of  none  of  them  is  adequate  to  sustain  such 
elaboration,  so  much  monotonous  detail.  The  Idylls  of  the 
King  contain  far  more  lines  than  Paradise  Lost,  which,  indeed, 
would  bear  being  shorter. 

Tennyson  would  too  often  paint  vignettes  upon  a  canvas 
which  was  fit  for  a  cartoon  of  life-size  groups.  As  Lyall 
points  out,  his  habit  was  to  paint  a  picture  by  elaborating  a 
succession  of  local  features,  not  by  broad  strokes.  And  in 
conducting  an  argument,  or  developing  a  plot,  he  sought  to 
obtain  his  effects  by  a  multiplicity  of  kindred,  but  distinct 
points.  The  whole  was  always  beautiful  and  often  impres- 
sive. But  it  was  at  times  tedious,  and  was  never  the  highest 
form  of  art.  The  Homeric  and  sculptured  figures  of  (Enone, 
Ulysses,  Tithonus,  became  long-drawn  subtle  romances  of 
love,  disappointment,  destiny,  and  ambition,  more  akin 
to  the  modern  novel  than  to  classical  simplicity.  Tennyson, 
no  doubt,  was  never  diffuse  in  words,  and  wrote  with  a  cul- 
tured brevity  and  economy  of  phrase.  But  he  was  certainly 
most  profuse  in  images,  ideas,  and  colours;  and,  in  arguing 
a  thesis  or  in  narrating  a  story,  he  relied  on  artful  elaboration, 
rather  than  on  the  flash,  the  thunder,  of  the  greatest  poets. 

How  many  stanzas,  how  many  pages,  would  Tennyson 
have  filled  if  he  had  conceived  such  an  invocation  as  this : 


36  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

Thou,  O  Spirit,  that  dost  prefer 
Before  all  Temples  th1  upright  heart  and  pure, 
Instruct  me,  for  Thou  know'st :  Thou  from  the  first 
Wast  present,  and  with  mighty  wings  outspread 
Dove-like  sat'st  brooding  on  the  vast  Abyss 
And  mad'st  it  pregnant :  what  in  me  is  dark 
Illumine,  what  is  low  raise  and  support. 

Hamlet's  soliloquy,  "To  be,  or  not  to  be,"  goes  in  thirty- 
two  lines,  and  it  contains  as  much  thought  as  the  whole  of 
In  Memoriam  in  3000  lines,  and  it  is  quite  as  impressive. 

The  truth  is  this.  Tennyson  phrased  each  thought  with 
masterly  concision.  But  he  framed  each  picture  with  a 
laborious  multiplication  of  touches;  he  told  his  tale  with  a 
continuous  stream  of  subtle  suggestions,  just  as  Samuel 
Richardson  does  in  Clarissa]  and  he  works  up  a  recondite 
philosophical  thesis  by  piecing  together  a  sorites  of  ingenious 
arguments,  on  no  one  of  which  is  he  willing  to  rely  as  con- 
clusive. It  is  a  mode  of  art  singularly  popular,  but  it  is  not 
the  art  of  the  greatest  masters  of  song. 

An  excellent  point  made  by  Lyall  is  the  attention  he  draws 
to  the  versatility  of  the  Laureate,  even  from  the  first.  How 
any  men  pretending  to  be  critics  could  talk,  as  the  Quarterly 
men  did,  about  "fantastic  shrines"  and  "baby  idols"  in 
speaking  of  volumes  which  passed  from  "Mariana"  to 
"(Enone"  and  thence  to  "Morte  d'Arthur,"  "St.  Simeon 
Stylites,"  "Fatima,"  "Three  Voices,"  "Locksley  Hall," 
and  "The  Vision  of  Sin"  —  this  seems  strange  indeed  to  us. 
But,  after  all  these,  we  have  seen  the  Poet  of  "Come  into  the 
Garden,  Maud,"  produce  the  ""Passing  of  Arthur,"  "The 
Revenge,"  "Rizpah,"  "Vastness,"  "The  Foresters,"  and 
"Becket."  Since  Shakespeare,  no  one  of  our  poets,  unless 
it  be  Byron,  has  shown  anything  like  the  same  range  of  in- 
vention and  grasp  of  diverse  themes  and  all  modes  of  the 
lyre. 


SIR  A.  LYALL'S   "  TENNYSON  "  37 

Lyall  is  again  entirely  just  in  treating  In  Memoriam  as 
Tennyson's  masterpiece,  "of  all  the  continuous  poems  the 
longest  and  the  most  elaborate."  It  is,  as  I  said,  "one  of 
the  triumphs  of  English  poetry,"  and  it  would  not  be  easy  to 
name  any  other  poem  of  such  length  so  faultless  in  form,  so 
consummate  in  music  and  in  harmony  of  tone.  Sir  Alfred 
also  shows  how  greatly  the  success  of  In  Memoriam  was  due 
to  its  "sympathetic  affinity  with  the  spiritual  aspirations  and 
intellectual  dilemmas  of  the  time."  Of  course,  Lyall  rejects 
the  curious  notion  of  some  Tennysonians,  that  In  Memoriam 
founded  a  Theodicy,  or  religious  philosophy  of  its  own.  The 
poet  had  a  too  "dubitating  temperament,"  as  Lyall  phrases 
it,  to  found  any  scheme  of  philosophy  or  theology  whatever, 
even  if  his  "musical  meditations"  had  been  more  definite. 
"Dogmatic  theology  had  long  been  losing  ground";  science, 
he  says,  had  introduced  the  conception  of  law  in  lieu  of  will 
or  caprice.  Tennyson  had  lived  from  his  Cambridge  days 
in  1828,  "in  communion  with  the  thought  and  knowledge  of 
the  day."  It  took  a  strong  hold  of  his  imagination,  says 
Lyall.  Down  to  his  latest  years,  Tennyson  was  constantly 
shaken  with  the  enigmas  of  the  Universe,  the  Infinite,  Death, 
the  petty  and  transitory  nature  of  our  Earth.  As  he  recog- 
nised no  authoritative  Revelation,  Creed,  or  Church,  all  this 
hung  over  his  subtle  and  brooding  soul,  and  made  him  almost 
a  pessimist,  in  spite  of  his  resolute  will  to  "believe  where  we 
cannot  prove."  Such  was  the  tone  of  the  cultured  academic 
mind  of  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Tennyson 
lived  his  whole  life  in  this  atmosphere,  and  transfigured  its 
hopes,  its  doubts,  its  horror,  and  its  yearnings  in  a  series  of 
exquisite,  but  depressing,  descants. 

Lyall's  account  of  Tennyson's  religious  position  is  ad- 
mirably worked  out  and  quite  convincing.  He  rightly  ful- 
filled "the  poet's  mission,  which  is  to  embody  the  floating 


38  MEMORIES   AND    THOUGHTS 

thought  of  the  period."  "The  poet  leads  us  to  a  cloudy 
height ;  and  though  it  is  not  his  business  to  satisfy  the  strict 
philosophical  inquirer,  he  offers  to  all  wandering  souls  a 
refuge  in  the  faith."  Nothing  can  be  put  more  accurately. 
And,  as  Lyall  shows,  the  clouds  rather  thickened  than  dis- 
persed with  the  advancing  age  of  the  poet.  "  The  sense  of  the 
brevity  of  human  existence  and  the  uncertainty  of  what  may 
lie  beyond,  although  Tennyson  fought  against  it  manfully, 
did  undoubtedly  haunt  his  meditations  and  depress  the  spirit 
of  his  later  inspirations."  Such  pieces  as  "Despair"  and 
"Vastness"  indicate  a  morbid  tone  in  man's  view  of  life, 
duty,  and  religion ;  and,  with  all  their  sublimity  and  pathos, 
they  tend  to  debilitate  and  unman  us.  As  Lyall  says,  "they 
have  a  tendency  to  weigh  down  the  mainsprings  of  human 
activity."  "  They  are  beautiful  as  poetry,  but  they  are  neither 
philosophy  nor  religion." 

The  second  chapter  of  the  Memoir  shows  where  and  how, 
at  the  age  of  twenty,  the  poet's  intellectual  interests  grew. 
At  Cambridge,  from  1828  to  1830,  he  lived  in  the  society  of 
the  "Apostles,"  described  in  Carlyle's  Sterling,  the  brethren 
who,  as  Sterling  said,  "are  waxing  daily  in  religion  and  radi- 
calism." Arthur  Hallam,  one  of  the  most  brilliant  of  them, 
wrote  that  the  spirit  of  the  young  society  had  been  created  by 
Frederick  Denison  Maurice.  Maurice  had  left  Cambridge 
a  year  or  two  before ;  but  he  had  already  begun  to  exert  on 
young  inquiring  minds  the  remarkable  influence  which  he  so 
long  retained.  With  a  really  beautiful  nature  and  high  social 
aspirations,  Maurice  was,  as  Ruskin  found  him,  "by  nature 
puzzle-headed  and  indeed  wrong-headed."  In  spite  of  this, 
the  poet  formed  a  close  friendship  with  the  theologian,  made 
him  godfather  to  his  son,  and  thought  that,  had  he  been  less 
obscure  to  the  ordinary  mind,  he  might  have  taken  his  place 
as  the  foremost  thinker  among  the  Churchmen  of  their  time. 


SIR  A.  LYALL'S    "TENNYSON"  39 

Churchmen  of  that  stamp  were  certainly  of  a  flabby,  incon- 
clusive order  of  mind. 

In  aesthetic  parsonages  they  grumble  at  the  impression 
Lyall  seems  to  convey  that  the  Laureate's  mood  was  too  often 
inconsequent  and  gloomy.  But  such  was  his  frame  of 
mind,  and  it  grew  on  him  with  age.  The  problems  of  In- 
finity, Eternity,  the  brevity  and  littleness  of  human  life,  loomed 
ever  darker,  and  never  rested  in  any  complete  and  final  an- 
swer. He  was  ever  "in  many  a  subtle  question  versed," 
and  "ever  strove  to  make  it  true."  But  to  the  last  he  never 
quite  beat  his  music  out.  He  faced  the  spectres  of  the  mind ; 
but  he  never  absolutely  laid  them.  I  remember  as  a  young 
man  when  first  admitted  to  his  company,  he  turned  to  me, 
with  that  grand  assumption  which  he  affected  to  those  with 
whom  he  disagreed,  saying  with  a  most  cadaverous  air:  "If 
I  thought  as  you  do,  I  should  go  and  drown  myself."  I 
smiled ;  for  the  absurdity  as  well  as  the  ill  manners  of  such  an 
outburst  amused  me.  I  replied  quietly,  looking,  I  am 
sure,  as  cheerful  as  he  looked  disconsolate :  "  No  !  Mr.  Tenny- 
son, if  you  thought  as  I  do  about  Life  and  Death  —  you  would 
be  a  happy  man !"  Personally,  the  poet  seemed  to  be  even 
more  unsatisfied  with  his  own  beliefs  than  the  poems  showed. 
But  if  it  did  not  tend  to  peace  of  mind  and  energy  of  action, 
the  pathos  and  the  dreaminess  of  this  habit  of  thought  were 
the  inspiration  of  much  exquisite  poetry.  Like  other  people, 
he  mistook  his  own  gift  of  words  for  profound  thought. 

We  shall  all  agree  with  Lyall  as  to  the  rare  charm  of  the 
lyrics  of  Maud,  especially  of  the  songs,  which  are  amongst 
the  most  exquisite  in  all  modern  poetry.  But  he  points  out 
with  a  sure  hand  the  essential  weakness  of  the  "  Monodrama," 
where  violent  storms  of  passion,  ecstatic  love  and  happiness, 
and  actual  madness  have  to  be  told  of  himself  by  a  single 
speaker.  Maud  is  a  very  singular,  almost  unique,  example 


40  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

of  a  rare  type  —  an  elaborate  and  passionate  lyric,  wherein 
is  rehearsed  a  romantic  and  indeed  sensational  story,  such  as 
we  expect  in  a  psychologic  novel  or  a  rousing  melodrama. 
Lyall  dwells  enthusiastically  on  all  the  beauties  of  the  poem ; 
but  he  is  forced  to  admit  that  the  task  which  the  poet  had 
set  to  himself  was  beyond  the  reach  of  lyric  art. 

The  Princess  is  one  of  the  Laureate's  delicious  master- 
pieces for  which  even  the  least  friendly  critics  have  never  had 
anything  but  praise.  It  was  a  theme  that  gave  scope  to 
every  one  of  Tennyson's  gifts  —  his  fancy,  his  exquisite 
sense  of  beauty  both  material  and  moral,  his  glowing  imagi- 
nation and  deep  sense  of  purity,  the  reign  of  love,  the  perfec- 
tion of  Woman.  For  my  part,  I  always  count  this  poem  as 
Tennyson's  most  typical  triumph,  for  whilst  it  gives  every 
opening  to  his  peculiar  genius,  it  has  nothing  whereof  he  was 
other  than  perfect  master.  Maud  may  have  structural 
defects ;  the  Idylls  of  the  King  are  a  cross  between  Idyll  and 
Epic,  and  are  not  quite  faultless  in  either  sense;  and  even 
In  Memoriam  is  somewhat  long-winded,  lugubrious,  and 
unsettling  to  the  general  reader.  But  The  Princess  has  pe- 
rennial delight  for  the  whole  reading  world,  whilst  it  satisfies 
every  canon  of  .the  most  searching  criticism. 

No  part  of  Lyall's  estimate  is  more  elaborate  and  more  just 
than  the  very  subtle  study  he  has  made  of  the  Idylls  of  the 
King.  He  analyses  the  sources  of  their  sustained  popularity 

—  the  colour,  the  imagination,  the  fine  symbolism  and  the 
marvellous  versatility  of  the  twelve  cantos.     But  he  cannot 
close  his  mind  to  the  incongruity  inevitable  in  such  a  scheme 

—  the  transmuting  Malory's  magical  myths,  told  in  frank 
mother-tongue,  into  ethical  allegories,  psychologic  subtleties, 
and  modern  delicacy  of  thought  and  speech.     The  Arthurian 
romance  in  its  original  form  never  was  a  thing  for  young 
ladies  to  dream  over,  for  ministers  to  preach  about,  or  for 


SIR  A.  LYALL'S   "TENNYSON"  41 

the  hierophants  of  culture  to  expound  in  elaborate  "keys" 
and  commentaries.  As  in  Maud,  as  in  The  Promise  of  May, 
in  "Vastness"  and  in  "Despair,"  the  poet  set  himself  a  task 
where  the  conditions  of  real  success  were  unattainable  by 
any  art.  The  author  of  these  exquisite  Pastorals,  songs, 
lyrics,  fantasies,  medleys,  and  meditations  forced  himself  to 
produce  an  Epic  of  11,000  lines,  a  crowded  stage  of  heroes, 
battles,  supernatural  beings,  of  passionate  love  and  tragic 
death,  all  predetermined  by  a  mysterious  destiny;  and  yet 
the  poet  will  not  put  off  his  love  of  dulcet  Pastoral,  psychologic 
analysis,  and  ethical  homily.  The  result,  as  Lyall  says,  is 
too  much  of  a  "splendid  anachronism,"  something  in  places 
almost  tame  and  artificial.  But  it  is  strangely  fascinating 
and  deserves  its  immense  popularity  with  the  general  public. 
Equally  subtle  is  Lyall's  analysis  of  the  Romances^  Ballads, 
and  Pastorals.  He  is  enthusiastic  over  their  grace,  refine- 
ment, fancy,  and  imagination,  whilst  recognising  that  Tenny- 
son's genius  was  "essentially  cultivated  and  picturesque." 
This  does  not  accord  with  the  unconscious  simplicity  of  the 
true  ballad  or  the  rustic  power  of  plain  speech  now  and  then 
reached  by  Burns,  Lady  Nairne,  and  by  Wordsworth. 
"The  Twa  Corbies"  and  "Edwin  and  Angelina"  are  both 
said  to  be  ballads :  but  how  wide  is  the  gulf  between  them ! 
Difficile  est  proprie  communia  dicere;  and  that  camel  will  get 
through  the  eye  of  the  needle  after  all,  before  culture  and 
word-painting  will  ever  produce  the  pathos  that  rings  in  the 
genuine  speech  of  rude  men.  Tennyson's  two  "Northern 
Farmers"  are  a  rare  success.  But  they  were  enough.  The 
prolonged  imitation  of  mere  provincial  vulgarisms  becomes 
dull  and  unpleasing,  if  carried  too  far,  as  does  the  music  of 
whistling  in  imitation  of  the  voice  or  the  violin.  It  is  a 
wonderful  trick  but  soon  grows  tiresome.  Lyall  has  put  this 
excellently.  But  it  is  a  pity  that  he  has  not  said  quite  enough 


42  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

of  "Rizpah."  This  poem  was  Tennyson's  supreme  triumph 
in  the  weird,  tragic,  and  ghastly  romance.  It  has  true  direct- 
ness, horror,  and  realism.  And,  dreadful  as  it  is,  it  is  within 
the  range  of  poetry,  nor  has  modern  poetry  done  anything 
grander  in  that  vein. 

It  is  pleasant  to  find  that  Lyall  does  full  justice  to  the 
Dramas,  especially  to  the  gallant  attempt  to  revive  a  genuine 
historical  drama,  which  our  new  historical  precision  has 
made  an  almost  impossible  task.  The  best  of  Tennyson's 
Plays  have  not  been  properly  valued.  They  inevitably  want 
the  grace,  music,  and  glow  of  the  lyrics  and  idylls  and  the 
subtlety  of  the  meditative  poems.  And  Tennyson's  genius 
was  lyrical,  not  dramatic.  Accordingly,  none  of  them, 
except  Becket,  succeeded  on  the  stage  with  a  London  public 
eager  for  very  different  spectacles.  Nor  have  they  in  full 
measure  all  the  charm  that  the  cultured  reader  finds  in  the 
Lyrics.  But  they  have  sound  qualities  of  their  own,  and  will 
doubtless  be  played  to  more  worthy  audiences  when  a  real 
reform  of  the  theatre  has  been  achieved.  In  the  meantime, 
they  ought  to  be  read  by  all  who  care  for  serious  poetry  and 
the  idealisation  of  great  historic  catastrophes. 

One  regrets  that  the  poet  did  not  take  King  Alfred  for  one 
of  his  heroes.  The  scantiness  of  the  historical  record  would 
have  given  ample  scope  to  his  imagination,  whilst  the  nobility 
of  the  great  King  and  his  mission  as  saviour  of  the  English 
name  would  have  given  fire  to  the  poet's  patriotism.  After 
some  reflection,  he  rejected  William  the  Silent  as  subject  for  a 
drama,  because  he  clung  tenaciously  to  English  history  and 
legend.  Lyall  truly  remarks  on  the  singular  tendency  of 
Tennyson  to  restrict  his  subject  to  his  own  country.  He 
confines  his  vision,  except  for  the  antique,  to  England  and 
even  particular  parts  of  England.  Chaucer,  Shakespeare, 
Milton,  Dryden,  Pope,  Byron,  Shelley,  Wordsworth,  Cole- 


SIR  A.  LYALL'S   "TENNYSON"  43 

ridge,  Keats,  and  Browning  are  full  of  interest  in  other  lands. 
Foreign  travel  did  not  inspire  Tennyson;  foreign  history, 
legend,  and  art  left  him  cold;  he  rarely  alludes  even  to 
Scotland  or  to  Ireland.  He  is  the  most  intensely  English 
of  all  our  poets,  unless  it  be  Cowper  or  Crabbe.  That  has 
been  Tennyson's  strength.  It  may  hereafter  prove  to  be  a 
weakness. 

Lyall  does  full  justice  to  Tennyson's  command  of  every 
type  of  metrical  resource.  But  he  does  not  seem  to  complain 
of  that  peculiarity  of  his  later  manner  which  at  last  became  a 
mannerism  and  even  an  offence.  To  me  the  enormously 
long  rhymed  lines  of  his  decline  are  quite  intolerable.  Lines 
of  sixteen  syllables  as  in  "Despair,"  or  of  eighteen  and  even 
twenty  in  "Vastness,"  are  abortions  in  English  verse;  and 
that  for  the  sound  reason  that  the  English  language  has  an 
inordinate  number  of  consonants  in  proportion  to  vowels, 
and  consequently  piles  up  an  agglomeration  of  letters  in 
every  long  line.  No  other  poetry  has  ever  burdened  itself 
with  verses  of  sixty  letters  and  twenty  syllables.  Such  mon- 
strosities in  poetry  are  not  verses  but  tumours.  Hardly  any 
modern  language  is  so  ill-fitted  for  them  as  is  our  own. 

Another  tendency  which  grew  on  the  Laureate  with  years 
was  the  constant  resort  to  trochaic  metres  ( — ^),  and  also 
to  three-syllable  feet,  such  as  dactyls  ( —  ^^)  or  anapaests 
(ww — ).  We  all  enjoyed  the  "May  Queen,"  "Locksley 
Hall,"  the  "Light  Brigade,"  and  felt  the  quick,  eager,  and 
tripping  trochees  well  fitted  for  a  short  ballad.  But  when  it 
came  to  dactyls  in  lines  of  sixteen  and  eighteen  syllables, 
when  long-winded  metaphysical  debates  were  spun  out  in 
verses  consisting  of  seven  feet  and  a  half,  with  twenty  syllables 
and  sixty  letters  —  Tennyson  or  not  —  the  effect  is  wearisome. 
The  rattle  of  the  three-syllable  foot  is  quite  unsuited  to  philo- 
sophical homily.  The  poet,  in  his  earlier  mode,  quite  felt 


44 

the  futility  of  English  hexameters  and  pentameters  when  he 
wrote  in  his  "Experiments": 

When  was  a  harsher  sound  ever  heard,  ye  Muses,  in  England? 
When  did  a  frog  coarser  croak  upon  Helicon  ? 

Although  after  the  "experiment"  of  "Boadicea,"  he  did 
not  resort  to  pure  hexameters,  for  which  our  language  is  so 
utterly  unfit,  he  constantly  resorted  to  long  lines  of  octameters 
full  of  dactyls,  the  effect  of  which  to  our  ears  is  even  less 
pleasing  than  that  of  "Boadicea."1 

There  seems  to  be  very  good  reason  for  the  more  sparing 
use  in  English  poetry  of  trochees,  dactyls,  or  anapaests.  The 
excessive  quantity  of  letters  in  English  syllables,  as  compared 
with  the  classical  or  Latin  tongues,  causes  an  English  three- 
syllable  foot  to  bulk  larger,  both  to  the  ear  and  to  the  eye, 
than  does  a  Greek,  Latin,  or  Italian  three-syllable  foot. 
The  first  line  of  the  Iliad  has  only  eleven  consonants;  the 
first  line  of  the  JEneid  has  nineteen ;  the  first  line  of  Paradise 
Lost  has  twenty-one;  the  first  line  of  "Vastness"  has  thirty- 
one  consonants.  And  they  tumble  over  each  other,  choke 
the  mouth  and  disturb  the  eye. 

A  peculiarity  of  English  speech  is  the  tendency  to  throw 
back  the  accent  to  the  antepenultimate  syllable,  to  clip  and 
hurry  the  pronunciation,  and  this  especially  in  the  more 
vulgar  language.  The  trochaic  and  dactylic  metres  natu- 
rally accentuate  this  tendency ;  and,  however  suited  for  ballad 
purposes  and  for  impetuous  bursts  of  emotion,  these  verses, 

1  The  fourth  line  of  "  Vastness  "  scans  thus : 

1234  56 

yy    —   ww    —  ww    —    y   ^       w    ^    

What    is    it  |  all   but   a  |  trouble    of  |  ants   in  the  |  gleam    of     a  |  million 

7  8 

—    w  w     — 
million  of  |  suns  |, 

a  dactylic  octameter  catalectic  (i.e.  cut  short). 


SIR  A.  LYALL'S   "TENNYSON"  45 

with  the  accent  on  the  penultimate  and  antepenultimate 
of  the  foot,  are  not  suited  for  sustained  narration,  grave 
reasoning,  and  dignity  of  tone.  English  heroic  verse  has 
always  chosen  an  iambic  metre  —  i.e.  feet  of  two  syllables, 
one  short  and  one  long,  with  the  stress  on  the  last  syllable, 
not  on  the  first.  We  could  not  stand  Paradise  Lost  in  a 
dactylic  or  ballad  metre.1 

Tennyson  has  shown  himself  to  have  consummate  mas- 
tery of  the  iambic  metres  in  all  their  forms,  and  all  his  noblest 
pieces  are  so  cast.  The  nature  of  our  language  and  all  the 
traditions  of  our  poetry  point  to  some  of  the  iambic  forms 
as  best  for  all  continuous,  grave,  and  stately  poems.  And 
this  makes  it  the  more  unlucky  that  he  so  often  abandoned 
them  in  his  later  verses  for  trochaic  and  dactylic  types, 
indelibly  associated  with  ballads,  burlesques,  and  even 
nursery  rhymes.2 

We  may  offer  these  criticisms  without  at  all  impugning 
Tennyson's  undoubted  claim  to  be  looked  on  as  the  supreme 
poet  of  the  Victorian  Era,  and  one  of  the  chief  lyric  poets  of 
our  English  tongue.  It  is  unworthy  of  him  and  of  ourselves 
to  exalt  him  to  a  superhuman  pedestal,  where  it'is  counted 
profanity  to  hint  at  a  weakness  or  a  fault.  Like  almost  all 
our  poets,  except  Milton,  Gray,  Coleridge,  and  Arnold,  he 
published  a  great  deal  more  than  he  need  have  done.  Tenny- 
son no  doubt  published  far  less  of  careless,  ill-digested,  and 

1  Suppose  it  ran  in  dactyls  : 

i  2  3  456 

<J          W          WW        W  W          WW        W 

Man's   want    of  |  proper    ob  |  edience    and  |  tasting  of  |  disallowed  |  apples. 

2  The  trochaic  metre  suits  : 

"  John  Gilpin,"  "The  Babes  in  the   Wood,"  "Three  Jolly   Huntsmen," 
and  "  Lord  Bateman." 
Dactylic  metre  suits : 

1  2  3  45 

—      —  —         W     W  —   v^yvy          WW  

'Tis  the  |  voice  of  the  |  sluggard    I  |  heard   him   com  |  plain. 


46  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

poor  work  than  almost  any  of  our  poets.  All  of  them,  except 
Milton  and  Gray,  sank  at  times  into  bathos  unworthy  of 
them.  This  Tennyson  never  did.  But  he  published  much, 
in  his  later  career,  which  is  inferior  to  his  best.  The  future 
will  no  doubt  be  content  to  remember  little  more  than  a  half, 
or  even  a  third,  of  his  immense  output.  Most  of  his  poems 
would  be  more  effective  if  they  were  only  half  as  long  as  they 
are.  Again,  his  best  work  was  all  completed  in  the  first  thirty 
years  of  his  very  long  course  of  active  work.  But  having 
accepted  these  provisos,  let  us  make  the  most  of  him  who  was 
the  greatest  poet  of  the  last  three  generations ;  let  us  delight 
in  his  grace,  soothe  our  spirit  in  his  music,  revel  in  his  fan- 
tasies, and  honour  his  noble  ideals,  his  pure  imagination,  his 
profound  seriousness. 


THE  MILLENARY  OF  KING  ALFRED 

[An  address  given  in  1897,  proposing  the  celebration  oj  the  thousandth 
anniversary  oj  Alfred's  death.  This  took  place  in  October  IQOI,  when 
the  Statue  was  unveiled  by  Lord  Rosebery  at  Winchester.] 

ON  the  26th  of  October  1901,  exactly  four  years  hence, 
a  thousand  years  will  have  passed  since  the  death  of  our 
greatest  King.  We  are  a  little  overdone  with  anniversaries, 
and  those  not  always  of  the  worthiest.  But  this  is  no  ordinary 
occasion ;  for  it  will  be  the  thousandth  anniversary  of  him  to 
whom  England  owes  an  incalculable  debt  of  gratitude,  one 
whom  our  best  teachers  describe  as  the  noblest  Englishman 
recorded  in  our  history.  Alfred's  name  is  almost  the  only 
one  in  the  long  roll  of  our  national  worthies  which  awakens 
no  bitter,  no  jealous  thought,  which  combines  the  honour  of  all ; 
Alfred  represents  at  once  the  ancient  Monarchy,  the  army, 
the  navy,  the  law,  the  literature,  the  poetry,  the  art,  the  enter- 
prise, the  industry,  the  religion  of  our  race.  Neither  Welsh- 
man, nor  Scot,  nor  Irishman  can  feel  that  Alfred's  memory 
has  left  the  trace  of  a  wound  for  his  national  pride.  No  differ- 
ence of  Church  arises  to  separate  any  who  would  join  to  do 
Alfred  honour.  No  Saint  in  the  Calendar  was  a  more  loyal 
and  cherished  member  of  the  ancient  faith;  and  yet  no 
Protestant  can  imagine  a  purer  and  more  simple  follower  of 
the  Gospel.  Alfred  was  a  victorious  warrior  whose  victories 
have  left  no  curses  behind  them :  a  King  whom  no  man  ever 
charged  with  a  harsh  act:  a  scholar  who  never  became  a 
pedant :  a  Saint  who  knew  no  superstition :  a  hero  as  bold  as 
Launcelot  —  as  spotless  as  Galahad. 

47 


48  MEMORIES  AND    THOUGHTS 

The  commemoration  of  this  glorious  Founder  of  our 
national  unity  —  of  a  man  so  close  to  the  very  roots  of  the 
throne,  so  dear  to  the  sympathies  of  the  people,  bound  up 
with  all  our  traditions  and  institutions,  the  inspiration  of  our 
early  literature  and  language  —  such  a  commemoration  should 
be  a  national,  not  a  private,  concern.  The  House  of  Com- 
mons might  well  vote  the  cost  of  a  torpedo-boat  for  the 
Founder  of  our  maritime  power,  for  him  to  whom  we  largely 
owe  it  that  there  exists  any  England  at  all. 

If  it  be  done,  it  should  be  done  royally ;  in  a  form  at  once 
magnificent  and  national.  I  do  not  presume  to  say  what 
form  it  should  take.  I  trust  that,  when  the  time  comes,  the 
Government  itself  will  take  counsel  of  the  most  competent 
advisers  it  can  find.  In  my  daydreams  I  have  imagined  a 
grand  Mausoleum,  dedicated  to  the  memory  of  Alfred,  and 
in  manifold  forms  of  art  recording  the  great  events  of  his. life. 
I  use  the  word  —  Mausoleum  —  not  in  the  commercial,  but 
in  the  true,  the  historic,  sense  —  the  monument  erected  to  King 
Mausolus  in  the  fourth  century  B.C.  by  the  piety  of  his  wife. 

It  was  one  of  the  triumphs  and  one  of  the  wonders  of  the 
ancient  world :  and  itself  exerted  a  dominant  influence  over 
the  development  of  Hellenic  art.  All  visitors  to  the  British 
Museum  are  familiar  with  the  fragments  of  it  which  time  has 
spared,  and  have  seen  the  suggestions  of  its  original  form 
over  which  the  learned  dispute.  It  contained  colossal  statues 
of  the  King  and  his  wife  Artemisia  —  still  noble  even  in  their 
ruined  state  —  a  grand  monumental  edifice,  adorned  with  a 
multitude  of  statues,  reliefs,  friezes,  and  finials,  the  least 
fragment  of  which  is  to-day  a  study  and  a  joy.  Now,  I  do 
not  suggest  that  we  should  imitate  that  or  any  other  monu- 
ment of  antiquity;  but  I  can  imagine  the  boundless  oppor- 
tunities for  great  commemorative  art  which  a  monument  of 
this  kind  presents. 


THE   MILLENARY  OF   KING   ALFRED  49 

In  my  daydreams  I  have  seen  rising  in  some  conspicuous 
spot  in  Wessex  a  shrine  in  that  Byzantine  manner  which  was 
the  dominant  architecture  of  Europe  in  the  age  of  Alfred  — 
the  style  of  the  Holy  Wisdom  of  Constantinople,  or  possibly 
of  that  Pantheon  at  Rome  which  Alfred  knew  —  but  in  any 
case,  a  building  wherein  could  be  worked  out  in  marble,  in 
mosaic,  in  bronze,  and  in  enamel,  scenes  to  recall  to  us  the 
aspect  and  events  of  our  Hero's  life  —  his  terrific  combats 
with  the  Dane  on  land  and  sea,  his  council-hall,  his  midnight 
meditations,  his  studies,  his  prayers,  his  boyish  experiences  in 
Rome. 

What  a  scope  for  the  artist  in  every  form  of  art  is  presented 
by  the  varied  incidents  of  that  crowded  life  and  heroic  age, 
when  all  costume  was  noble,  all  accessories  picturesque,  and 
manners  Homeric  in  simple  nature.  It  seems  to  me  that 
any  fine  works  of  art  should  be  under  a  roof,  and  not  exposed 
to  our  climate,  and  that  a  covered  building  might  contain  not 
only  the  principal  monument,  but  a  Museum  to  which  might 
be  transferred  Alfred's  Jewel  at  Oxford  and  any  other  genuine 
relic  of  his  time,  with  coins,  carvings,  enamels,  arms,  robes, 
and  any  contemporary  manuscript  and  illumination  which  it 
was  possible  to  obtain. 

Or  a  simpler  form  would  be  a  colossal  statue  to  be  seen 
afar  off  on  the  top  of  some  historic  down  in  a  more  massive 
and  bolder  type  of  art.  And  if  such  a  monument  were  raised 
in  the  open  air,  there  is  little  doubt  where  it  should  be  placed. 
I  was  the  other  day  again  in  the  ancient  and  famous  city  of 
Winchester  —  the  royal  city  of  Alfred,  where  his  bones  still 
crumble  in  their  thrice-desecrated  tomb  —  I  thought  fresh 
efforts  should  be  made  to  identify  the  exact  spot  —  and  I 
felt  how  deep  a  debt  lies  on  Winchester  and  on  England  to 
replace  that  lost  grave  at  least  with  a  cenotaph  and  a  monu- 
ment—  "the  tomb,"  says  the  Annals,  "made  of  the  most 


50  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

precious  porphyry  marble."  How  fitly  it  might  stand  on  the 
historic  Hill  which  looks  down  on  College,  Cathedral,  and 
wall! 

A  Mausoleum  which  should  combine  a  grand  statue  of  the 
King  with  various  illustrations  of  his  life  and  deeds  would  open 
great  opportunities  to  several  artists  in  different  arts.  And 
it  would  be  a  narrow  patriotism  indeed  which  limited  these 
artists  to  our  own  land.  It  would  dishonour  the  memory  of 
Alfred  to  do  this.  No  English  ruler  has  ever  been  so  large- 
minded  in  all  his  interests,  so  Catholic  in  his  taste,  so  pre- 
eminently European  in  his  type  of  mind.  To  him  of  all  men, 
Art,  Learning,  Culture  were  too  wide  and  human  to  know  any 
local  habitation.  He  sought  out  for  his  service,  his  biographer 
tells  us,  Welshmen,  Irishmen,  Bretons,  Franks,  Scots,  Frisians, 
and  Danes;  "he  was  munificent  towards  foreigners  of  all 
races";  he  sent  abroad  for  teachers,  artificers,  discoverers, 
and  seamen.  It  would  be  a  pity  if  a  monument  to  commem- 
orate his  name  were  not  open  to  the  genius  of  the  civilised 
world. 

Another  thought,  indeed,  has  occurred  to  me.  Our  West- 
minster Abbey  is  at  last  crowded  to  excess,  and  must  very 
soon  cease  to  be  the  resting-place  of  the  great  men  whom 
the  nation  delights  to  honour.  We  need  a  new  Abbey,  a 
Campo  Santo,  where  in  ages  to  come  the  noblest  sons  of  Eng- 
land may  be  laid  (as  the  poet  says)  "  to  the  noise  of  the 
mourning  of  a  mighty  nation."  It  is  easy  to  say  that  future 
ages  will  take  care  of  themselves.  But  there  is  one  thing 
that  the  Future  cannot  do  —  it  cannot  create  a  Past.  And 
what  it  will  want  for  its  Campo  Santo,  when  the  venerable 
Abbey  can  serve  no  longer,  is  a  Past.  A  national  Mausoleum 
of  King  Alfred  may  at  least  suggest  a  Past  —  a  past  more 
ancient  than  the  Abbey  of  the  Edwards  and  the  Henrys  — 
it  might  grow  into  the  nucleus  of  a  national  Hero'um  —  just  as 


THE   MILLENARY  OF  KING   ALFRED  51 

Poets'  Corner  grew  into  a  sanctuary  of  art  round  the  tomb 
of  Chaucer  in  the  Abbey.  And  I  can  conceive  that  in  ages 
to  come  Nelsons'  famous  phrase  of,  "  Victory  or  Westminster 
Abbey,"  might  be  replaced  by  the  hope  of  warrior,  states- 
man, or  poet  to  be  thought  worthy  to  lie  in  the  Mausoleum 
of  Alfred. 

When  the  thousandth  anniversary  of  Alfred  comes  round, 
we  all  trust  that  the  royal  Lady,  the  forty-ninth  sovereign 
since  Alfred,  may  be  able  and  willing  to  give  her  personal 
sanction  to  a  national  Festival.  Modern  history  has  no 
such  sequence  of  national  continuity  to  present  —  no  throne, 
no  institution,  no  organic  patriotism,  no  literature  of  such 
vast  duration  and  such  venerable  traditions.  And  this  is  a 
healthy  and  fruitful  form  of  patriotic  feeling.  It  can  offend 
no  man,  neither  in  these  islands  nor  in  the  Empire,  nor 
abroad  in  other  nations.  The  little  Englander  and  the 
greater  Englander,  the  Englishman  and  the  Imperialist,  Old 
England  and  New  England,  can  unite  in  honour  of  the  great 
King  who  ruled  an  England  far  smaller  than  any  little 
England  of  to-day,  yet  whose  genius  and  heroism  made  it 
the  nucleus  —  the  poti  sto  —  of  all  that  his  descendants  ever 
held  in  their  dominion,  of  all  that  his  descendant,  Her 
Majesty,  holds  in  dominion  at  this  hour  [1897].  The 
memory  of  Alfred  calls  up  no  thought  of  Conquest,  but 
the  noblest  form  of  Defence,  it  calls  up  international  sympa- 
thies and  co-operation,  a  great  civilising  and  missionary  task, 
it  suggests  schools,  temples,  libraries,  industries,  courts  of 
justice,  civic  organisation :  —  all  the  boundless  influence  of  a 
great  brain  and  a  majestic  character,  be  the  field  of  his  energy 
as  small  as  a  single  province  and  the  materials  to  his  hand  of 
the  simplest  sort. 

Many  other  modes  of  using  for  ourselves  and  our  children 
this  matchless  occasion  occur  to  me,  on  which  to-night  I  can 


52  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

only  touch.  There  is  still  needed  a  perfectly  complete  and 
critical  edition  of  every  line  of  the  King's  authentic  writings. 
We  should  never  forget  that  Alfred  is  the  Father  of  English 
History,  the  Founder  of  English  prose.  He  is  in  the  true 
sense  the  Father  of  the  History  of  the  English  people  —  in  a 
sense  more  literally  true  than  Herodotus  ever  was  the  "  Father 
of  History"  —  in  that  Alfred  gave  an  impulse  and  form  to  the 
English  Chronicle,  the  oldest  national  record  in  modern 
Europe ;  and  himself  wrote  or  inspired  the  writing  of  some  of 
its  typical  parts.  He  is  the  Founder  of  English  prose,  in 
that  he  not  only  formed  an  organic  prose,  but  his  influence 
caused  the  maintenance  of  English  prose  until  the  Conquest 
for  the  time  superseded  it  by  Latin  and  French.  No  perfect 
collection  of  these  noble  pieces  of  our  scholar  King  has  yet 
been  made :  and  it  would  form  a  worthy  task  for  a  company 
of  Scholars  to  achieve  it. 

Nor,  again,  is  there  any  adequate  English  biography  of 
our  great  Hero.  After  all  that  has  been  done  by  eminent 
scholars  who  have  given  us  every  authentic  fact  ascertainable 
in  Alfred's  career,  there  is  yet  no  full  and  adequate  biography 
of  the  King  by  an  English  hand.  The  splendid  pictures 
drawn  by  Green  and  by  Freeman,  in  more  than  one  work  of 
each,  remain  after  all  but  glowing  sketches ;  and  they  are  but 
episodes  embedded  in  voluminous  works.  And,  excellent  as 
is  the  German  work  of  Dr.  Pauli,  it  is  possible  to  imagine  a 
new  biography  based  on  more  recent  research,  and  worthy 
to  rank  with  the  masterpieces  of  English  prose. 

Perhaps  it  is  not  too  late  for  the  Holy  See  to  repair  its 
neglect  to  place  Alfred  amongst  its  canonised  Sovereigns. 
There  are  already  twelve  of  these  in  the  Calendar,  we  are 
told :  not  one  of  the  twelve  was  the  peer  of  the  Saxon  King 
—  whom  four  centuries  ago  our  Henry  VI.  vainly  besought 
the  Pope  to  canonise.  Rome  acts  always  with  deliberation. 


THE   MILLENARY  OF   KING   ALFRED  53 

But,  after  a  thousand  years,  it  may  yet  recognise  the  holiness 
of  a  saint  the  halo  of  whose  glory  will  last  as  long  as  the 
Church. 

Some  commemoration  of  the  great  King  there  is  certain 
to  be  in  the  millenary  year  1901.  I  would  raise  a  voice  in 
hope  that  it  may  be  at  once  national  and  worthy  of  the  na- 
tion :  that  it  may  not  degenerate  into  a  scramble  or  a  farce. 
It  would  be  an  occasion  to  call  for  representation  of  every 
side  of  our  national  life  —  as  the  pulse  from  Alfred's  mighty 
heart  throbbed  into  every  vein  of  the  nation's  organism. 
Soldiers,  sailors,  scholars,  churchmen,  missionaries,  teachers, 
councillors,  judges,  prelates,  artists,  craftsmen,  discoverers 

—  chiefs  and  people  —  all  alike  might  gather  to  do  honour  to 
the  royal  genius  who  loved  them  all,  who  breathed  into  them 
all  his  own  inspiration.     I  can  imagine  an  assemblage  of 
chosen  delegates  from  our  regiments  and  our  fleets,  from 
cathedral,  abbey,  church,  and  chapel  (without  distinction  of 
creed),  from  universities  and  schools,  from  art  and  science 
academies,  from  libraries  and  institutes,  from  Parliament 
and  from   Government,   from   courts  of  justice  and  from 
county  halls  and  city  councils,  from  the  labourers  in  town  and 
country  —  all  joining  around  a  national  monument  to  our 
first  great  Hero.     Such  military  display  as  was  thought  right 
would  best  be  furnished  forth  by  the  volunteers  and  naval 
reserves  in  honour  of  the  King  who  first  organised  a  regular 
militia  at  home  for  the  defence  of  our  shores  by  sea  and  land 

—  whose   very  name   as   a   warrior   spells   "Defence  —  not 
Defiance."     Such  a  national   commemoration  would   be  a 
real  festival  of  industry,  art,  order,  union,  peace,  and  religion. 

No  people,  in  ancient  or  modern  times,  ever  had  a  Hero- 
Founder  at  once  so  truly  historic,  so  venerable,  and  so  su- 
premely great.  Alfred  was  more  to  us  than  the  heroes  in  an- 
tique myths  —  more  than  Theseus  and  Solon  were  to  Athens, 


54 


MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 


or  Lycurgus  to  Sparta,  or  Romulus  and  Numa  were  to  Rome, 
more  than  St.  Stephen  was  to  Hungary,  or  Pelayo  and  the  Cid 
to  Spain,  more  than  Hugh  Capet  and  Jeanne  d'Arc  were  to 
France,  more  than  William  the  Silent  was  to  Holland  —  nay, 
almost  as  much  as  the  Great  Charles  was  to  the  Franks. 

The  life-work  of  the  Great  Alfred  has  had  a  continuity,  an 
organic  development,  a  moral,  intellectual,  and  spiritual 
majesty  which  has  no  parallel  or  rival  amongst  rulers  in  the 
annals  of  mankind.  And  I  cannot  doubt  that  four  years 
hence  the  English-speaking  people  will  remember  him  who 
gave  them  the  precious  germs  of  that  which  our  forefathers 
have  made  a  thousand  years  of  national  life  and  honour. 


THE  TERCENTENARY  OF  CROMWELL 

THREE  hundred  years  have  come  and  gone  since  the 
mightiest  spirit  that  ever  held  command  over  these  three 
kingdoms  came  into  the  world.  For  two  hundred  and  fifty 
years  the  English  people  who  owed  him  so  much  (all  but  a 
remnant  of  stalwart  men)  reviled  his  memory  and  ridiculed 
his  life.  He  was  despised  and  rejected  of  men.  We  hid  our 
faces  from  him.  At  last,  in  the  latter  half-century,  a  man 
of  genius  drove  home  to  the  bottom  of  our  conscience  as  a 
people,  our  folly,  ingratitude,  and  shame.  Years  and  years 
of  remorse  will  hardly  suffice  to  expiate  our  offence. 

Thomas  Carlyle  spoke,  we  may  admit,  with  passion,  with 
something  of  a  prophet's  rage  and  excess.  In  fifty  years  we 
have  grown  calmer,  more  judicial,  more  amply  informed  of 
the  truth.  And  recognising  as  we  do  the  substantial  justice 
of  Carlyle's  story  —  nay,  seeing  in  many  things  how  even 
his  high  estimate  may  be  amplified  and  coloured  —  we  have 
no  temptation  to-day  to  exaggerate  qualities  or  to  palliate 
faults.  We  are  willing  to  admit  the  sad  and  dark  side  of  this 
vast  national  epic,  as  well  as  the  immortal  and  heroic  side 
we  see  to-day.  We  are  all  no  longer  under  the  spell  of  an 
advocate's  passion.  We  are  penetrated  with  the  conviction 
of  a  weighty  and  unanswerable  judgment,  all  errors  weighed 
and  measured  out  in  the  issue.  And  we,  the  most  ardent 
Oliverians  of  us  all,  are  no  longer  battling  for  Revision  of  an 
unjust  sentence.  We  come,  like  pilgrims,  to  bow  the  head  in 
silent  meditation  at  the  foot  of  an  empty  and  desecrated  tomb. 

It  has  taken  three  hundred  years  for  Englishmen  to  know 

55 


56  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

what  they  owe  to  one  of  the  greatest  men  their  race  has  pro- 
duced. It  is  a  wise  rule  that  we  should  in  general  observe 
anniversaries  of  death  rather  than  of  birth,  for  all  public  and 
historic  purposes.  Birthdays  belong  to  family  occasions,  and 
are  proper  to  theological  and  mystical  festivals.  Except 
from  the  point  of  view  of  some  miraculous  and  superhuman 
birth,  the  coming  into  the  world  of  a  statesman  or  poet  is  a 
thing  of  which  the  public  at  the  time  took  no  note,  and  which 
affected  nobody  and  nothing  outside  the  home  itself.  The 
effect  of  a  great  life  upon  fellow-men  is  only  complete  and 
perceptible  when  the  life  is  closed,  and  often  not  till  long 
afterwards.  No  one  outside  a  plain  home  in  Huntingdon 
noticed  the  fact  that  Elizabeth  Cromwell  was  brought  to  bed 
of  her  fifth  child,  and  for  forty  years  few  people  supposed 
that  a  great  event  in  English  history  had  happened  on  the 
25th  of  April  1599.  But  when  Oliver,  Protector,  died,  all 
Britain  and  Ireland  held  its  breath  in  hushed  expectation  — 
and  all  Europe  breathed  more  freely.  It  is  the  end  of  a  great 
career  which  concerns  nations  —  not  the  unnoticed  birth 
of  a  baby  who  may  live  to  have  a  great  career  half  a  century 
later.  Real  centenaries  should  run  with  the  date  of  death, 
not  of  birth,  or  we  shall  all  get  bored  by  anniversary  com- 
memorations, as  some  affected  people  even  now  profess  to  be 
bored. 

But,  as  many  honest  men  refuse  to  postpone  the  com- 
memoration of  Oliver  until  1958,  and  as  the  first  statue  to  him 
in  London  is  to  be  raised  this  year,  we  need  not  adjourn  our 
remembrance  of  a  great  man  to  a  date  which  only  our  children 
will  see.  Let  us  ask  ourselves  to-day  the  simple  questions 
-  In  what  things  was  Cromwell  a  great  Englishman  ?  What 
is  the  teaching  of  his  life?  What  are  the  effects  he  left  on 
the  history  of  England? 

Oliver  Cromwell  is  by  general  consent  a  typical  English- 


THE   TERCENTENARY  OF  CROMWELL  57 

man,  having  that  union  of  somewhat  incongruous  forces 
which  is  to  be  found  in  the  English  people,  which  has  made 
England  —  English  in  his  courage,  in  his  patience,  his  self- 
control,  his  masterful  stubbornness,  his  pitiless  crushing 
down  of  opponents  when  he  felt  himself  to  be  on  the  path  of 
duty,  his  disdain  of  forms,  theories,  doctrines,  and  Utopias, 
his  passion  for  freedom  with  personal  self-will,  his  Biblical 
religion,  his  sterling  honesty  of  aim  and  yet  great  capacity 
for  intrigue,  his  fierce  hold  on  certain  root  ideals  with  a 
boundless  spirit  of  compromise,  opportunism,  toleration  of 
all  things  and  all  men  that  he  judged  to  be  instrumental  to 
his  ends.  An  eminent  historian  (himself  a  descendant  of  the 
Protector)  tells  us  to  regard  him  "with  all  his  physical  and 
moral  audacity,  with  all  his  tenderness  and  spiritual  yearnings, 
in  the  world  of  action  what  Shakespeare  was  in  the  world  of 
thought,  the  greatest  because  the  most  typical  Englishman 
of  all  time  "  —  not  a  model  but  a  mirror,  wherein  we  may  see 
alike  our  weakness  and  our  strength. 

The  "most  typical"  of  Englishmen  is  wholly  true:  as  to 
"the  greatest,"  it  is  a  term  rather  too  strong  for  those  who 
admit  great  faults,  and  perhaps  some  crimes.  It  is  true  that 
both  faults  and  crimes  were  essentially  those  of  the  age  and 
of  the  moral  standard  of  the  party  he  led ;  and  what  we  most 
condemn  to-day  met  with  nothing  but  praise  from  some  of 
the  best  spirits  of  the  time.  Yet  perhaps  in  "the  greatest" 
of  Englishmen  we  would  ask  for  a  career  more  entirely  spotless, 
and  a  nature  of  more  heroic  beauty.  King  Alfred,  whom 
Freeman  called  "the  model  Englishman,"  would  be  more 
fairly  matched  with  Shakespeare,  if  we  choose  to  imagine 
the  greatest  of  our  national  types,  for  to  King  Alfred  neither 
crimes  nor  faults  are  imputed.  Cromwell  is  of  us,  is  near  to 
us ;  we  are  living  still  in  the  daily  influence  of  his  work ;  we 
know  every  incident  of  his  life,  almost  every  thought  of  his 


58  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

mind.  We  feel  for  him  as  we  feel  for  our  own  country,  when 
unconsciously,  instinctively,  often  in  spite  of  the  pricking  of 
conscience,  we  murmur  —  England  !  with  all  thy  faults  I 
love  thee  still !  We  honour  Cromwell  in  spite  of  his  faults ; 
some  of  us,  it  may  be  feared,  because  of  his  faults. 

It  is  as  an  Englishman  that  Cromwell  must  be  judged,  and 
it  is  unreasonable  to  ask  Scots  or  Irish  to  join  us  to-day. 
Though  Cromwell  gave  Scotland  good  government  for  the 
first  time  in  its  history,  so  that  a  Scotchman  and  an  enemy 
writes :  "  We  always  reckon  those  eight  years  of  the  usurpation 
a  time  of  great  peace  and  prosperity;"  though  he  certainly 
prepared  the  way  for  the  ultimate  Union  —  the  source  of 
Scotland's  happiness  and  glory  —  yet  it  will  not  be  forgotten 
that  Cromwell  conquered  Scotland,  and  ruled  it  as  a  con- 
queror. As  to  Ireland,  Cromwell  remorselessly  carried  out 
the  atrocious  policy  of  his  age,  and  of  our  country.  For 
my  part,  I  never  will  palliate  or  condone  it.  And  the  "curse 
of  Cromwell"  in  the  mouths  of  Irishmen  will  long  rest  on  his 
memory  and  on  our  peace. 

The  teaching  of  Cromwell's  life  is  plain.  The  silly  legend 
about  his  ambition  and  demagogic  intrigues  has  long  died 
away.  If  ever  any  English  ruler  had  power  forced  on  him 
step  by  step,  or  ever  lived  a  reserved,  austere,  domestic  life 
till  roused  by  tyranny  to  play  the  man  as  a  citizen  should,  if 
ever  English  statesman  having  absolute  power  stood  clear  of 
personal  interests  or  sordid  desires,  it  was  he.  As  our  Hero- 
King  wrote :  "  You  need  not  be  solicitous  about  power,  nor 
strive  after  it.  If  you  be  wise  and  good,  it  will  follow  you 
though  you  should  not  wish  it."  The  meditations  of  Alfred 
upon  Power  form  a  key  to  the  career  of  his  successor  eight 
centuries  later.  Nor  let  it  be  forgotten  that  for  the  first 
time  in  our  history,  and  almost  for  the  last  time,  morality 
and  religion  were  the  titles  for  entrance  to  Oliver's  Court, 


THE  TERCENTENARY  OF  CROMWELL  59 

and  notorious  vice  unfitted  all  men  for  Oliver's  service.  His 
tolerance  of  honest  convictions,  his  patience  under  open 
hostility,  his  loathing  of  confirmed  profligacy,  his  contempt 
for  conventional  formulas  —  were  alike  unalterable  and 
boundless. 

As  a  statesman,  the  unique  merit  of  Cromwell's  govern- 
ment was  his  genius  for  administration,  for  securing  efficiency 
in  every  department,  for  selecting  the  right  man  for  every 
duty,  for  recognising  and  using  every  kind  of  capacity  in 
every  department.  His  success  in  this  crowning  art  of  the 
statesman  has  perhaps  never  been  equalled  in  our  own 
history,  hardly  in  that  of  Europe,  unless  it  be  by  Richelieu 
and  Frederick  the  Great.  This  plain  yeoman,  who  had  tilled 
his  farmstead  until  past  forty  years,  stepped  forth  into  public 
life,  made  himself  a  thorough  soldier,  created  a  consummate 
army,  decided  a  tremendous  civil  war,  conquered  two  neigh- 
bouring kingdoms,  guided  a  national  revolution,  stemmed  it 
back  by  organising  a  solid  conservative  government,  chose  as 
his  deputies  the  most  capable  soldiers,  seamen,  governors, 
diplomatists,  financiers,  lawyers,  ministers,  and  publicists 
who  could  be  found  to  serve  the  Commonwealth,  and  in  five 
years  he  had  formed  the  strongest  Government  in  Europe, 
and  had  made  his  country  the  leading  Power  in  the  world. 

In  what  we  now  call  opportunism  (that  is,  the  instinct  of 
the  statesman  to  change  his  tactics  under  circumstances  and 
to  seize  the  occasion  of  the  hour)  Cromwell  has  rarely  been 
equalled  by  any  man  in  all  recorded  history.  His  note  as  a 
born  statesman  is  the  union  of  matchless  audacity  with  in- 
exhaustible wariness.  No  great  man  so  brave  and  so  daring 
was  ever  so  untiringly  prudent  and  watchful.  In  his  whole 
career  Cromwell  never  met  with  a  single  disaster,  either  in 
war  or  in  government.  He  was  never  off  his  guard,  was 
never  once  caught  napping,  never  relaxed  his  intense  hold  on 


60  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

the  smallest  detail,  or  allowed  a  single  point  to  be  unguarded. 
In  this  he  is  like  Elizabeth,  Wellington,  or  Marlborough,  but 
he  surpassed  them  all  in  sleepless  vigilance  and  unbroken 
success.  His  were  not  the  triumphs  of  a  Napoleon  alternat- 
ing with  hideous  catastrophes,  nor  the  generous  imprudences 
of  a  Caesar  or  a  Henry  IV.  In  one  of  the  most  complex  and 
arduous  careers  in  history,  Cromwell  is  almost  the  one  great 
chief  who  in  peace  and  in  war  never  met  with  a  rebuff  which 
more  perfect  prudence  would  have  sufficed  to  avert. 

What  permanent  results  did  Cromwell  stamp  upon  the 
history  of  England?  In  the  broadest  sense  he  gave  us 
modern  England.  Not,  of  course,  alone,  but  as  chief  leader 
in  the  English  Revolution,  much  as  Frederick  made  modern 
Prussia,  as  Nelson  won  Trafalgar,  or  as  Wellington  won 
Waterloo.  Cromwell  made  modern  England  with  the  blood 
and  sweat  and  heart  of  the  flower  of  the  English  people.  It  is 
far  from  clear  that  without  him  the  finer  part  of  the  English 
people  would  not  have  succumbed  to  the  baser  part,  that  the 
Stuarts  would  not  have  founded  at  last  some  such  monarchy 
as  that  of  the  Louis  in  France.  Those  who  understand  the 
inner  history  of  the  Civil  War  know  that,  down  to  the  battle 
of  Marston,  if  not  down  to  the  New  Model,  the  issue  was  far 
from  clear  —  and  Marston  and  Naseby  were  essentially 
Cromwell's  triumphs.  And  those  who  understand  English 
history  know  that  the  struggle  was  a  long  one,  that  it  lasted 
for  at  least  sixty  years  from  the  Long  Parliament  to  the  Act 
of  Settlement,  that  what  old  Whigs  call  the  "Revolution" 
was  a  mere  episode  and  after-glow  of  the  Commonwealth. 
Modern  England  begins  with  the  Act  of  Settlement :  this  was 
the  direct  fruit  of  the  Civil  War:  and  the  Civil  War  might 
have  ended  in  a  Malignant  Monarchy  —  but  for  Oliver 
Cromwell  and  his  genius  as  soldier  and  statesman. 

An  exalted  Personage  once  asked  a  certain  historian  to  tell 


THE  TERCENTENARY  OF  CROMWELL  6l 

him  what  Cromwell  had  left  of  permanent  to  the  nation? 
"Well,  sir,"  was  the  answer,  "our  most  gracious  Majesty, 
and  our  present  Dynasty."  This  may  pass  as  an  after-dinner 
phrase,  but  it  is  not  altogether  a  paradox.  We  have  to  look 
at  these  problems  in  a  large  way  and  from  an  ample  perspec- 
tive. The  Commonwealth  and  the  Protectorate  destroyed 
the  Old  Monarchy  and  the  Feudal  Constitution,  and  they 
opened  the  ground  for  all  our  Liberal  Institutions.  It  is 
true  that  Stuarts,  Monarchy,  and  Church  returned,  but  only 
for  a  space,  mere  shadows  of  their  ancient  form.  Look  at 
England  as  a  whole,  as  it  was  at  the  accession  of  Charles  I. 
and  as  it  was  at  the  accession  of  Queen  Anne,  and  note  the 
enormous  change  within  those  two  generations.  Monarchy, 
peerage,  parliament,  law,  justice,  finance,  toleration,  equity, 
commerce,  religion  —  all  were  transformed,  and  stood  on  a 
wholly  new  social  system.  Who,  along  with  the  people  of 
England,  and  their  sense  of  freedom,  justice,  and  truth,  had 
made  this  possible?  Who  —  but  Oliver  Cromwell? 

Of  course,  the  Protectorate  was  followed  by  the  Restoration, 
and  most  of  its  direct  acts  of  State  were  annulled.  It  is 
true  that  Parliamentary  Government,  as  understood  by  the 
Whigs,  was  far  from  an  idea  of  Cromwell,  who  contemplated 
rather  the  Presidential  system  of  the  United  States.  But, 
though  Cromwell  did  not  found  Parliamentary  Government, 
nor  religious  liberty,  nor  the  legal  and  administrative  system 
that  he  prematurely  set  up,  he  made  all  these  things  possible 
in  the  end,  little  as  he  foresaw  what  he  was  doing.  Our 
subsequent  history,  no  doubt,  was  a  compromise,  and  much 
of  it  was  as  anti-Cromwellian  as  it  could  be.  But  it  was 
Cromwell  who,  in  the  evolution  of  the  English  nation,  made 
our  subsequent  history  possible. 

The  eminent  historian  quoted  above  now  tells  us  that 
Cromwell  has  left  nothing  permanent,  that  not  only  his 


62  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

institutions,  but  his  ideas  failed  of  result,  that  his  negative 
work  lasted,  but  his  positive  work  vanished.  This  is  an  over- 
statement which,  if  it  were  pressed,  would  be  a  paradox  or  a 
sophism.  It  is  a  matter  of  language.  In  great  revolutions 
of  nations  and  societies  there  is  no  arbitrary  distinction  be- 
tween negative  and  positive  results.  To  destroy  for  ever  an 
effete  political  and  social  system  is  practically  to  found  a  new 
system.  And  if  new  institutions  improvised  on  the  cleared 
ground  do  not  take  permanent  root,  they  prepare  the  way  for 
modified  institutions  of  a  kindred  sort.  It  would  be  easy 
to  show  that  Alexander,  Julius  Caesar,  Charlemagne,  Riche- 
lieu, or  Napoleon  left  no  permanent  results  on  history,  be- 
cause their  positive  work  vanished,  and  their  institutions  were 
swept  away,  or  developed  in  new  forms.  That  Cromwell's 
"ideas"  have  failed  is  manifestly  untrue.  What,  then,  mean 
our  eulogies,  centenaries,  statues,  and  honours  to  his  memory 
—  our  grateful  sense  of  his  hatred  of  oppression,  of  persecu- 
tion, of  his  zeal  for  good  government,  justice,  morality,  religion 
in  things  public  as  well  as  private?  Let  us  not  make  our- 
selves blind  over  the  records  of  institutions  and  negotiations. 
The  ideas  of  Cromwell  live  deep  down  in  the  hearts  of  Eng- 
lishmen. 

We  hear  too  much  of  the  objection  that  Cromwell  was  a 
soldier  and  ruled  by  the  sword.  He  was  a  civilian  —  not  a 
soldier  —  a  citizen  by  nature,  and  always  a  statesman  by 
the  summons  of  the  nation,  a  soldier  for  a  brief  spell  by  dire 
necessity.  Cromwell  was  forty-three  when  he  first  drew  a 
sword,  and  of  the  fifty-eight  yearcof  his  life  he  spent  but  nine 
under  arms.  Great  soldier  as  he  was  in  the  field,  he  was  far  less 
the  professional  soldier  than  George  Washington,  or  William 
the  Silent.  If  we  study  his  whole  career  after  Worcester  we 
see  him  continually  labouring  to  return  to  a  civil  government, 
and  all  his  ways  differ  essentially  from  the  ways  of  a  Frederick 


THE   TERCENTENARY  OF   CROMWELL  63 

or  a  Napoleon,  though  he  held  absolute  power,  and  was  beset 
by  enemies  within  and  without.  The  Protectorate,  which 
lasted  less  than  five  years,  was  a  constant  effort  to  restore  the 
ravages  and  calm  the  passions  of  civil  war. 

We  are  told  again  that  Cromwell's  rule  rested  wholly  on 
the  Army,  that  it  was  a  military  despotism,  and  that  a  mili- 
tary despotism  was  an  impossibility  in  England,  doomed 
to  an  abhorred  collapse.  In  words,  it  is  true  that  the  Pro- 
tectorate, like  the  Long  Parliament,  rested  on  armed  men, 
who,  perhaps,  were  at  all  times  a  minority  of  the  nation. 
Neither  Parliament  nor  Protector  were  any  product  of  man- 
hood suffrage.  But  the  armies  of  Parliament  and  Protector 
were  formed  of  men  wholly  different  in  origin  and  in  character 
from  the  troops  who  followed  Frederick  or  Napoleon,  or  even 
Wellington  or  Moltke.  The  "Ironsides"  were  ardent 
politicians,  usually  religious  and  political  enthusiasts,  who 
held  their  own  Parliament  in  the  camp,  a  Parliament  more 
able  and  honest  than  the  Rump  at  Westminster.  The 
Clarke  Papers,  so  admirably  edited  by  Mr.  C.  H.  Firth,  have 
shown  us  what  these  men  were  like,  and  how  they  affected 
the  State.  With  all  their  faults  and  follies  they  were  the 
flower  of  England,  and  the  most  genuine  politicians  of  their 
age.  And  far  into  the  Restoration  the  old  "Ironsides" 
were  known,  up  and  down  the  country,  as  the  most  trusty, 
virtuous,  and  industrious  citizens  in  their  villages  or  towns. 
Most  revolutions  are  carried  through  by  a  minority  of  en- 
thusiasts. It  was  so  in  the  Commonwealth.  And  the  larger 
part  of  what  was  brave,  pure,  and  just  in  England  gathered 
round  the  great  man  who,  of  all  English  chiefs  since  Alfred, 
was  the  most  brave,  the  most  sincere,  the  most  just,  the  most 
devout. 


THE   STATUE   OF   OLIVER  CROMWELL 

1899 

AT  last,  after  two  centuries  and  a  half,  London  has  a  statue 
of  the  greatest  ruler  who  ever  governed  the  three  kingdoms. 
The  hatred  of  his  memory,  which  so  long  kept  him  in  exile 
from  the  Palace  of  Westminster,  has  at  length  fizzled  out  in  the 
whining  of  a  handful  of  Ritualists,  Jew  financiers,  and  Jaco- 
bites. That  Churchmen,  the  parasites  of  smart  Society, 
Irishmen,  mediaeval  aesthetes,  and  the  like  should  feel  sore 
at  honours  paid  to  the  great  Protector  is  not  unnatural.  But 
they  were  not  expected  to  subscribe  to  the  statue  and  were 
not  invited  to  attend  the  commemoration.  They  have 
vented  their  ill-humour;  and  now  at  last  a  grand  effigy  of 
Oliver  stands  in  the  precincts  of  the  ancient  Hall,  on  the 
gateway  of  which  his  mangled  head  rotted  for  twenty  years. 
It  looks  on  the  Abbey,  where  the  nation  entombed  him  with 
royal  honours  at  the  premature  end  of  his  short  dictatorship. 

To  oppose  the  erection  of  a  statue  to  Cromwell  shows  a 
curious  misunderstanding  of  what  such  a  memorial  implies. 
It  does  not  mean  that  we  approve  of  all  that  the  man  com- 
memorated did  in  life:  much  less  that  all  parties  and  sec- 
tions of  the  public  approve  his  career.  If  so,  there  could  be 
no  statues  of  Wellington,  Gordon,  Jenner,  or  George  III. 
If  warm  approval  of  all  the  acts  of  such  an  one  and  absolute 
unanimity  were  needed,  before  a  statue  could  be  raised,  there 
would  be  no  statues  at  all,  or  none  but  that  of  Alfred  the 

64 


THE   STATUE   OF  OLIVER   CROMWELL  65 

Great.  And,  even  in  his  case,  uniform  admiration  seems 
almost  to  dull  the  public  interest;  and  we  perhaps  want  a 
few  grumblers,  as  Devil's  advocates,  even  for  Alfred. 

But  just  consider  those  of  whom  we  have  statues  in 
London  already  —  Charles  I.,  James  II.,  Richard  Cceur 
de  Lion,  George  IV.  — four  of  the  worst  Kings  who  ever 
occupied  the  throne  —  to  say  nothing  of  Francis,  Duke 
of  Bedford,  Benjamin,  Earl  of  Beaconsfield,  the  Duke  of 
Cumberland,  and  the  Duke  of  York  of  the  last  century. 
There  would  be  plenty  of  black  balls  in  the  box,  if  these  noble 
persons  were  submitted  to  a  public  ballot.  Nobody  asks 
to  have  the  statue  of  any  of  these  removed  —  not  even  that 
of  the  miscreant  James  II.,  whom  Macaulay  describes  as  "a 
libertine,  narrow  in  understanding,  obstinate,  harsh,  and 
unforgiving"  —  one  whom  the  nation  drove  from  the  throne 
in  favour  of  the  present  Dynasty.  There  must  be  a  give- 
and-take  in  such  things.  And  if  the  mass  of  the  public  can 
tolerate  the  sight  in  bronze  of  a  sinister  brute  like  James  II., 
we  have  a  right  to  claim  a  place  for  one  who  represents  the 
good  side  of  that  great  national  struggle,  whereof  James  II. 
was  the  incarnation  of  the  evil  side. 

A  memorial  of  Oliver  rests  on  the  fact  that  he  was  the  leader 
of  a  movement  which  transformed  the  course  of  English 
history,  and  then,  for  nearly  five  years,  was  the  paramount 
ruler  of  the  three  kingdoms  at  an  epoch  eminent  for  skilful 
administration  and  national  power.  The  most  ardent  Olive- 
rians  do  not  to-day  pretend  to  justify  many  things  in  the  Pro- 
tector's public  action,  nor  do  they  dream  of  celebrating  him 
as  a  perfect  character.  No  one  now  repeats  the  extravagant 
hyperboles  of  Carlyle,  whose  sardonic  idolatry  tends  rather 
to  stimulate  hostility  to  the  memory  of  Cromwell,  not  to  dis- 
arm it.  But  the  reaction  against  Carlyle's  old-Cameronian 
hero-worship  seems  to  be  going  too  far ;  and  even  some  who 


F 


66  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

deeply  approve  the  overthrow  of  the  Stuart  absolutism  and 
all  that  it  meant  in  Church  and  State,  rather  minimise  the 
part  that  Oliver  had  in  the  work,  and  insist  on  his  failure 
to  bring  the  work  to  its  full  completeness.  In  these  days  of 
so  much  flabby  theology  and  playing  with  mediasvalism  on  one 
side,  of  so  much  conventional  liberalism  and  pedantic  special- 
ism on  the  other  side,  the  occasion  is  one  to  insist  on  the  su- 
preme importance  of  the  entire  life  of  Cromwell  in  the  success- 
ful evolution  of  the  English  people. 

It  is  now  plain  that  the  Stuart  absolutism  in  Church  and 
State  could  not  have  been  broken  down  without  civil  war. 
Of  that  civil  war,  one  marked  by  rapid  and  complete  success 
not  elsewhere  recorded  in  modern  history,  Cromwell  was  the 
soul.  All  the  great  battles  were  victories  of  his,  were  won  by 
his  genius  alone  when  all  seemed  lost.  The  conquest  of 
the  other  two  kingdoms  was  also  his  sole  task.  No  one  now, 
even  of  his  most  bitter  opponents,  doubts  Cromwell's  great 
place  as  a  soldier.  But  his  supreme  part  in  the  Civil  War 
was  much  more  than  that  of  a  soldier.  The  organising  of 
a  regular  army,  having  consummate  discipline  and  efficiency 
in  all  its  arms  and  resources,  out  of  the  raw  farmers  and 
workmen  hastily  enlisted,  was  Cromwell's  own  achievement, 
and  was  perhaps  even  more  decisive  than  brilliant  tactics  in 
the  field.  But  this  is  to  say  that,  but  for  Cromwell,  the 
Monarchy  and  Feudalism  might  have  beaten  down  the 
Parliament  and  people,  might  have  established  a  retrograde 
absolutism  and  a  persecuting  Church. 

But  it  is  as  the  instrument  of  a  great  political  and  social 
evolution,  much  more  than  as  a  consummate  soldier,  that  we 
celebrate  Cromwell;  it  is  as  statesman,  not  as  warrior,  that 
he  stands  to-day  at  the  gateway  of  Parliament,  looking  down 
on  the  minor  politicians  in  Parliament  Square.  We  are  told 
by  some  eminent  historians  of  the  Protector  that  his  negative 


THE   STATUE  OF  OLIVER  CROMWELL  67 

or  destructive  work  was  invaluable  and  permanent ;  his  posi- 
tive and  constructive  work  was  mistaken  and  evanescent. 
Part  of  this  statement  is  a  mere  matter  of  language ;  part  of 
it  is  due  to  the  viewing  the  broad  course  of  English  history 
from  a  standpoint  somewhat  too  special  and  narrow. 

What  is  negative,  what  is  positive  work,  in  things  political 
and  social?  Destructive  work,  in  statesmanship,  provided 
it  be  permanent,  is  ipso  facto  constructive,  if  it  enables  the 
new  system  to  form  and  to  grow.  As  Luther,  Wickliffe, 
Latimer  were  primarily  destructives  in  theology,  or  as  Vol- 
taire, Hume,  Kant  were  primarily  destructives  in  metaphysics, 
though  vast  constructions  have  grown  up  on  the  ground 
which  they  cleared  and  laid  bare,  so  some  of  the  most  mighty 
founders  of  political  reconstruction  left  at  their  deaths  noth- 
ing permanent  except  their  decisive  work  of  destruction. 
In  societies,  to  destroy  the  effete,  at  the  right  time,  in  the 
right  way,  and  once  for  all,  is  to  reconstruct.  Sulla,  Attila, 
Philip  II.,  Robespierre,  and  Marat  were  mere  destructives 
and  anarchists,  because  their  destruction  was  evil,  and  what 
they  destroyed  was  destined  to  revive.  But  those  who  sweep 
away  what  is  destined  to  perish  past  any  revival,  and,  after 
finally  preparing  the  new  ground,  design  a  new  type  of  society 
and  show  forth  an  ideal  of  a  better  world,  these  men  are  con- 
structive statesmen,  even  though  their  direct  foundations  are 
entirely  modified  and  rebuilt. 

Alexander,  Julius  Csesar,  Charles  the  Great,  Godfrey 
de  Bouillon,  Louis  XL,  William  the  Silent,  effected  memo- 
rable works  of  reconstruction.  The  first  three  transformed  the 
world  and  the  whole  course  of  civilisation,  and  the  latter 
three  made  possible  great  national  reconstruction.  And  yet 
the  State  system,  the  institutions  laboriously  founded  by  each 
of  these,  quickly  perished ;  and  hardly  one  of  them  left  any- 
thing absolutely  permanent  behind  him,  unless  it  were  the 


68  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

city  of  Alexandria  and  the  Calendar.  If  we  use  terms  very 
strictly,  and  press  things  rigidly,  the  residuum  of  their  entire 
work  may  be  said  to  lie  in  destruction,  or  negative  results. 
Especially  would  this  be  true  of  William  the  Silent,  whose 
whole  career  was  one  of  failure  and  disappointment ;  for,  at 
his  murder,  almost  everything  he  had  toiled  to  found  was 
crumbling  away.  And  yet  after  three  centuries  the  nation 
he  created  reveres  him  as  its  Father,  and  the  British  Empire 
is  now  fighting  on  the  Orange  River  in  Africa,  with  the  mere 
offshoot  and  emigrants  from  that  nation. 

Almost  every  criticism  now  urged  against  the  statesmanship 
of  the  Protector  might  be  made  with  tenfold  force  against 
that  of  William  the  Silent.  William's  great  scheme  of  unit- 
ing the  seventeen  provinces  utterly  failed  and  for  ever,  his 
attempt  to  harmonise  Lutheran  and  Calvinist,  Walloon  and 
Hollander,  noble  and  democrat,  broke  down  before  his  own 
eyes.  He  turned  from  France  to  England,  from  England  to 
Germany,  from  monarchs  to  people,  from  Princes  to  preachers, 
from  magnates  to  tradesmen.  His  diplomacy  was  one  long 
tangle  of  changes,  conflicting  principles,  ever-varying  combi- 
nations, as  was  that  of  Henry  of  Navarre,  Mazarin,  Cavour,  or 
Bismarck.  The  failures,  abortive  schemes,  vacillations,  high- 
handed acts,  and  arbitrary  blunders  imputed  to  the  Protector 
may  all  be  matched  in  the  history  of  these  statesmen;  and, 
in  the  case  of  William  the  Silent,  they  were  tenfold  as  great. 
And  yet  the  world  has  long  been  agreed  that  William  created 
a  nation,  and  that  his  negative  success  has  really  proved  to 
be  a  positive  success  of  the  first  order. 

That  destructive  statesmanship  should  be  constructive  in 
result,  requires  many  important  conditions.  The  destruction 
must  be  necessary  and  timely;  it  must  be  final;  it  must 
prepare  a  permanent  reconstruction.  The  Protectorate  ful- 
filled all  these  conditions.  Mr.  John  Morley,  in  his  new 


THE  STATUE  OF  OLIVER  CROMWELL  69 

and  fascinating  Life  0}  Cromwell,  quotes  a  sentence  of  mine 
wherein  I  speak  of  Oliver's  success  as  a  constructive  states- 
man. If  Mr.  Morley  will  look  again  at  chapter  xi.  of  my 
little  book  he  will  see  that  his  quotation  omits  the  most  im- 
portant phrase  in  my  sentence.  I  wrote  that  Oliver  was  one 
of  the  rare  order  "of  constructive  and  conservative  statesmen." 
By  that  I  meant  that  a  statesman  who,  after  a  great  revolu- 
tionary clearance,  stems  the  current  of  destruction,  conserves 
and  re-establishes  order  and  good  government,  ipso  facto 
constructs  a  new  and  sounder  system.  After  Worcester 
Cromwell  was  in  supreme  authority  for  exactly  seven  years, 
during  which  his  policy  was  essentially  Conservative.  As  he 
truly  said,  the  needs  of  the  time  were  "Healing  and  Settling." 
For  seven  years  he  did  heal  and  settle  in  the  only  way  possible, 
often  by  arbitrary  acts,  now  and  then  by  unjustifiable  acts, 
constantly  trying  new  methods,  but  always  bent  on  honest 
settlement.  And  this  seven  years  of  heroic,  but  often  abor- 
tive, striving  towards  settlement  in  a  conservative,  but  not  a 
reactionary  sense,  made  possible  the  final  Settlement,  which 
thirty  years  later  was  brought  about  in  the  time  of  the  third 
William  of  Orange. 

Although  many  of  the  Protector's  schemes  and  arrange- 
ments disappeared  with  him  and  some  of  them  before  him, 
they  were  ultimately  succeeded  by  institutions  of  a  similar 
order  and  having  like  purpose,  which  never  could  have  been 
founded  at  all  had  not  Cromwell's  reforms  and  experiments 
preceded  them.  Like  William  the  Silent,  Cromwell  failed 
at  times  because  he  was  in  advance  of  his  age,  especially  in 
the  matter  of  religious  equality,  official  competence,  law 
reform,  and  the  proper  spheres  of  Parliament  and  Executive. 
Had  Cromwell  had  his  way  he  would  have  made  the  political 
system  of  England  akin  to  that  of  the  United  States ;  and  in 
my  opinion  it  is  a  pity  he  did  not  have  his  way.  But  his 


70  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

failure  to  fall  in  with  the  Parliamentary  system,  which  was 
hardly  established  for  more  than  a  century  after  his  time,  was 
one  of  those  failures  for  which  he  is  deserving  of  honour  and 
not  of  blame. 

It  is  quite  true  that  his  rule  as  Protector  was  based  on  the 
Army,  that  much  of  it  was  oppressive  to  the  defeated  party, 
that  it  was  unconstitutional,  such  as  could  not  be  permanently 
established  in  England.  Quite  true :  but  the  effectual 
destruction  of  the  old  divine-right  Monarchy  could  not  have 
been  made,  decisive  in  any  other  way.  Feudalism  could  not 
have  been  crushed  by  a  few  defeats  in  the  field.  And  the 
mediaeval  regime  in  law,  local  administration,  religious  per- 
secution, and  arbitrary  taxation  could  not  have  been  broken 
down  without  years  and  years  of  a  military  regime  based  on 
a  different  spirit.  Marston  Moor,  Naseby,  and  Worcester 
were  not  enough  to  transform  England  from  a  Feudal  Mon- 
archy and  semi- Catholic  Church  into  a  free  Common- 
wealth and  Protestant  toleration.  It  needed  the  five  years 
of  the  greatest  ruler  that  England  has  ever  known;  and  if 
the  five  years  had  been  fifteen  it  would  have  been  better  for 
us  now.  The  government  of  Scotland  was  oppressive;  the 
conquest  of  Ireland  was  atrocious;  the  foreign  policy  of  the 
Protectorate  was  selfish.  But  all  of  these  were  involved  in 
the  very  nature  of  the  Englishmen  of  that  day.  To  ask  of 
Cromwell  that  he  should  be  of  different  mould  was  to  ask 
him  not  to  be  an  Englishman  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
not  to  be  an  Englishman  at  all.  At  any  rate,  in  all  this  he 
did  not  go  counter  to  the  best  hopes  and  aims  of  the  worthiest 
men  of  his  own  time  and  nation.  In  his  fine  address,  Lord 
Rosebery  has  summed  up,  in  a  curiously  happy  phrase, 
the  essential  force  of  Cromwell's  nature.  He  was  truly 
"a  practical  mystic,  the  most  terrible  and  formidable  of 
all  combinations."  He  combined  spiritual  inspiration  with 
the  energy  of  a  mighty  man  of  action. 


THE  REMAINS  OF  OLIVER  CROMWELL 

1899 

THE  munificent  gift  to  the  nation  of  a  statue  of  the  great 
Protector  has  naturally  awakened  a  new  interest  in  the  sup- 
posed fragment  of  his  remains ;  and,  as  having  given  some 
attention  to  the  matter  when  preparing  my  little  book  on 
Oliver's  Life,  I  wish  to  support  the  very  reasonable  demand 
for  a  serious  and  official  inquiry  into  the  facts.  I  do  not  pre- 
tend to  pronounce  any  decisive  opinion;  nor  am  I  inclined 
to  a  hasty  or  sentimental  view  of  the  case.  What  we  ask  is 
a  thorough  examination  with  convincing  authority,  not 
crude  action  without  adequate  investigation.  I  certainly 
believe,  as  was  remarked  by  others,  that  a  strong  prima 
facie  case  for  inquiry  exists.  Experts  of  much  more  weight 
than  laymen  can  have  in  such  a  matter  think  the  same. 
What  I  wish  to  urge  is,  that  now  is  the  time  for  inquiry,  and 
that  it  very  much  concerns  the  good  name  of  our  nation  to 
make  it. 

Let  us  consider  what  is  at  stake,  supposing  that  the  mummy 
head  is  truly  that  of  Oliver  himself.  Many  competent  men, 
some  on  historical  and  some  on  physiological  grounds,  be- 
lieve that  it  is.  If  so,  a  really  dreadful  responsibility  lies 
upon  us.  Whatever  view  we  take  of  the  Civil  War  and  the 
Usurpation,  whatever  we  hold  about  Oliver's  character  and 
designs,  no  one  doubts  that  he  was  de  facto  ruler  of  England 
in  a  time  of  glory  and  power,  that  his  is  one  of  the  greatest 
names  in  the  roll  of  English  history,  that  he  was  laid  with 

7' 


72  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

magnificent  ceremony  in  the  Abbey  by  the  de  facto  Govern- 
ment of  these  islands.  There  he  lay  with  official  sanction 
until  the  Restoration,  when  one  of  the  most  foul  and  bar- 
barous outrages  recorded  in  our  history  was  perpetrated  upon 
his  remains.  It  was  not  the  action  of  a  mob,  it  was  not  done 
in  the  fury  of  revolution  or  civil  war,  nor  was  it  the  incon- 
siderate act  of  irresponsible  subordinates.  It  was  deliberately 
done  by  Parliament,  the  Government,  and  the  Crown  with 
every  form  of  loathsome  brutality.  And  in  the  judgment  of 
many  of  us  it  still  stands  an  unatoned  stain  on  our  monarchy 
and  our  national  history.  The  sickening  details  of  this 
outrage  rise  to  our  gorge  when  we  think  of  the  Restoration 
and  the  annals  of  Westminster. 

The  outrage  is  one  almost  without  example  in  our  history. 
In  France,  in  the  Netherlands,  in  Germany,  the  tombs  of  the 
great  dead  have  been  desecrated  by  furious  mobs  in  civil 
and  religious  insurrections.  But  our  history  is  happily  al- 
most wholly  free  from  that  peculiar  type  of  brutality.  The 
one  stain  on  our  history  of  this  odious  kind  is  the  official 
and  monarchic  outrage  on  the  Protector's  bones.  It  would 
be  difficult  to  find  in  European  history  another  instance  when 
a  monarchy  and  a  Parliament  had  inflicted  in  cold  blood  this 
vindictive  desecration  on  the  ruler  who  for  years  had  maintained 
its  honour  amongst  the  nations,  and  had  carried  its  flag  to  a 
foremost  place  in  the  earth.  Suppose  that  a  Spanish  Viceroy 
had  desecrated  the  tomb  of  William  the  Silent  at  Delft,  or 
that  a  Bourbon  Restoration  were  even  yet  to  desecrate  the 
tomb  of  Napoleon  in  the  Invah'des.  What  would  be  the 
feelings  of  a  Dutch  patriot,  or  of  a  French  patriot,  if  he  had 
good  reason  to  believe  that  the  severed  head  of  William,  or 
that  of  Napoleon,  were  this  very  day  to  be  seen  in  a  box  in  a 
country  house?  Every  Frenchman  or  any  Dutchman,  of 
decent  feeling,  whatever  his  religion  or  his  politics,  would 


THE   REMAINS   OF  OLIVER  CROMWELL  73 

exclaim  in  wrath  and  disgust  —  "In  God's  name,  let  us 
know  if  this  thing  can  be  !"  Now  a  great  many  of  us  think 
that  it  is  quite  possible  such  a  thing  really  is,  with  regard  to 
the  outraged  remains  of  Oliver,  and  we  think  it  becomes  this 
nation's  honour  to  find  out  the  truth. 

I  have  never  pretended  to  offer  any  conclusive  opinion  in 
a  difficult  problem  of  the  kind ;  and  I  only  took  up  the  in- 
quiry with  great  hesitation  and  repugnance.  The  subject 
is  a  gruesome  and  painful  one  in  any  case ;  and,  to  those  of 
us  who  profoundly  revere  the  memory  of  our  great  Protector, 
almost  horrible  and  repulsive.  No  one  with  such  a  sense 
can  witness  the  uncovering  of  a  relic  which,  whatever  it  be, 
is  an  appalling  sight,  without  a  qualm  of  divided  feeling  that, 
maybe,  he  is  looking  at  the  features  of  one  of  the  grandest 
spirits  our  English  soil  ever  reared  —  or,  it  may  be,  on  some 
nameless  skull  that  curiosity  or  imposture  may  have  invested 
with  interest.  In  my  own  case,  the  very  depth  of  veneration 
with  which  I  should  bow  my  head  before  the  true  remains 
of  the  hero  made  me  very  loth  to  admit  that  so  extraordinary 
a  survival  of  such  a  relic  was  possible.  I  believe  that  was  the 
feeling  of  Carlyle,  and  that  he  could  not  bring  himself  to 
examine  it  with  patience. 

Gradually,  and  by  a  convergent  set  of  testimonies,  I  have 
come  to  think  that  such  a  survival  is  not  only  possible,  but 
probable.  The  documentary  history  of  the  relic  is  very 
far  from  adequate;  but  it  is  perfectly  reasonable  and  con- 
sistent so  far  as  it  goes.  Under  the  circumstances,  a  per- 
fectly unbroken  and  complete  history  would  be,  in  the  highest 
degree,  unlikely  to  exist.  If  the  head  which  undoubtedly 
fell  one  night  from  Westminster  Hall  be  still  above  ground, 
it  would  only  be  preserved  in  a  secret  and  surreptitious  way. 
The  principal  evidence  I  take  to  be,  the  obvious  corresponp!- 
ence  of  the  mummy  head  with  the  authentic  portraits  and 


74  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

busts  of  Oliver,  and  especially  with  the  cast  taken  after  death 
on  which  Carlyle  relied.  I  have  made  a  study  of  all  these 
portraits  and  busts,  and  I  cannot  detect  one  feature  or  one 
circumstance  wherein  the  relic  fails.  The  extraordinary 
combination  of  incidents  is  this  —  an  embalmed  mummy 
head,  corresponding  minutely  to  the  portraits  and  busts  of 
Oliver,  severed  from  the  body  long  after  death,  and  after  em- 
balming, fixed  upon  an  ancient  halberd  head,  itself  bearing 
marks  of  long  weathering,  and  the  whole  piece  with  its  in- 
teguments, hair,  bony  structure,  flesh,  and  iron  spike  minutely 
corresponding  to  the  history  of  the  relic  —  itself  extremely 
probable  and  consistent.  What  ingenuity  could  combine  all 
these  elements  —  the  head  of  a  mummy  resembling  Oliver 
so  closely  as  to  convince  biologists  and  sculptors,  which  had 
been  severed  from  the  body  after  embalming,  and  was  en- 
crusted on  an  antique  lance  head?  And  to  what  end  was 
such  strange  ingenuity  directed?  The  relic  is  not  for  sale, 
nor  on  show,  nor  has  it  been  thrust  upon  the  public  notice. 
For  nearly  the  whole  of  the  century  it  has  been  honourably 
preserved  by  two  families,  who  regard  it  as  a  sacred  trust. 

I  am  very  far  from  asking  any  one  to  take  my  opinion  on 
the  matter,  which  after  all  only  amounts  to  a  primd  facie 
case  of  strong  probability.  What  we  ask  for  now  is  an  inquiry 
—  an  authoritative  and  conclusive  inquiry  —  to  place  the 
matter  at  rest  before  the  statue  is  set  up.  It  is  really  a  cruel 
thought  that,  for  aught  we  know,  the  grandest  head  that  ever 
sat  on  English  shoulders  may  be  lying  loose  in  the  house  of  a 
private  owner;  the  head,  be  it  remembered,  which  an  Eng- 
lish King  and  Parliament  so  foully  disinterred,  cut  off,  and 
set  up  in  mockery  at  the  gateway  of  Parliament.  To  leave 
this  possibility  floating  about  as  a  matter  of  periodical  gossip 
is  really  to  continue  and  approve  the  original  outrage. 

Now,  the  inquiry  can  be  made  a  very  simple  and  easy  one. 


THE   REMAINS   OF  OLIVER   CROMWELL  75 

I  suggest  that  a  small  Commission  should  be  asked  to  inves- 
tigate and  report  to  the  Home  Secretary.  It  so  happens  that 
there  are  many  descendants  of  the  Protector  amongst  our 
public  men,  especially  in  the  present  Government  and  party 
in  office.  Foremost  stand  a  late  Cabinet  Minister,  and  our 
most  learned  living  historian.  Lord  Ripon,  the  highest  in 
rank  of  the  known  descendants  of  Oliver,  would  make  an 
admirable  chairman;  Mr.  S.  Rawson  Gardiner,  another 
descendant,  would,  of  course,  be  at  his  side.  Sir  John  Lub- 
bock,  also  a  descendant,  would  represent  the  scientific  ques- 
tion ;  the  Regius  Professors  of  History  at  Oxford  and  Cam- 
bridge, and  certainly  Mr.  C.  H.  Firth,  as  a  Cromwellian 
expert,  should  be  added.  There  might  be  a  sculptor,  say 
Mr.  Thornycroft,  who  is  preparing  the  statue,  and  possibly 
an  expert  in  craniology  and  in  taxidermy,  or  the  like.  All 
we  want  is  an  authoritative  opinion  from  men  of  varied  ex- 
perience. A  month  or  two  of  careful  sifting  of  evidence,  a 
few  hours  of  actual  inspection,  and  half  a  dozen  sittings  would 
dispose  of  the  whole  affair.  And,  whatever  were  the  report 
of  the  Commission,  the  matter  would  be  set  at  rest  for  ever. 
But  in  case  such  a  Commission  were  to  report  that  in  their 
opinion  there  is  sufficient  ground  to  believe  the  relic  to  be  in 
truth  the  outraged  head  of  our  great  Protector,  then  the 
Government  should  address  the  Dean  of  Westminster,  having 
obtained  the  sanction  of  the  Crown,  and  ask  Parliament  to 
efface  the  atrocious  blot  upon  its  annals  by  formally  replacing 
the  surviving  fragment  of  our  great  Dictator  in  the  very  vault 
where  the  nation  laid  him  in  glory  and  honour  nearly  two 
centuries  and  a  half  ago.  Long  as  is  the  interval,  it  is  not  too 
late  to  atone  for  an  unparalleled  atrocity.  And  to  those 
whose  instinct  it  is  to  leave  things  alone,  we  would  say:  In 
any  case  the  outraged  remains  of  some  Englishman  still 
cry  out  for  peaceful  burial  —  it  may  well  be  the  outraged 


76  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

remains  of  one  of  the  greatest  Englishmen  our  land  ever 
bore. 

The  proper  resting-place  for  any  remnant  of  the  Protector's 
bones  which  chance  may  have  spared  is  unquestionably 
the  vault  in  Henry  VII. 's  Chapel,  where  the  nation  kid  him. 
For  years  past  many  of  us  have  visited  that  solemn  corner  of 
the  Abbey  year  by  year,  and  rehearsed  the  tale  of  ignominy 
with  yearning  for  some  ultimate  reparation  of  the  national 
crime.  Our  glorious  Abbey,  unlike  St.  Denis  or  the  Panth6on 
in  Paris,  has  no  desecrated  tombs  but  these.  And  the  bitter 
memories  they  still  awaken  in  us  rise,  unbidden  and  irrepres- 
sible, in  the  midst  of  the  pilgrimages  we  make  to  our  national 
burying-place  of  the  mighty  dead. 

In  the  Abbey  should  be  laid  in  final  rest  any  relic  of  Oliver 
that  might  conceivably  be  recovered.  Another  suggestion 
has  been  made,  which  we  need  not  discuss  until  it  is  plain 
that  some  obstacle  could  be  raised  to  this  obvious  reburial, 
on  behalf  of  the  Abbey  or  the  Crown.  Some  have  thought 
that  the  relic  itself  might  be  embodied  in  the  pedestal  or 
beneath  the  statue  of  Oliver,  so  that  the  new  effigy  would  be 
at  once  monument  and  actual  tomb.  There  is  something  to 
be  said  for  the  idea ;  but  it  is  one  which  it  is  needless  to  dis- 
cuss. The  proper  place  for  the  new  statue  of  Oliver  would 
be  Charing  Cross,  and  I  should  like  to  see  the  fine  statue 
of  Charles  I.  removed  to  the  neighbourhood  of  the  beautiful 
banqueting  hall  where  he  died.  Oliver  himself  should  have 
no  connection  with  Parliament,  nor  should  he  stand  in  its 
environs  at  all.  He  belongs  to  England,  and  not  to  the  three 
kingdoms  which  our  Parliament  (at  least  as  yet)  claims  to 
represent.  Let  Oliver  stand  in  Charing  Cross  hard  by  the 
very  spot  where  some  of  his  bravest  Ironsides  shed  their 
blood. 


THE   CENTENARY   OF  GIBBON 

1894 

THE  present  year  is  the  hundredth  anniversary  since  the 
death  of  the  greatest  of  all  English  historians.  Edward 
Gibbon  died  in  London,  in  January  1794,  in  his  fifty-seventh 
year.  His  reputation  has  been  so  perfectly  established  since 
the  appearance  of  the  first  volume  of  the  Decline  and  Fall  in 
1776,  it  has  been  so  unbroken,  it  is  so  continuously  growing, 
that  there  is  as  little  need  for  any  formal  commemoration  of 
his  achievement  as  there  is  for  that  of  Shakespeare  or  Bacon. 
And  his  life  was  so  simple,  so  transparent,  and  has  been  told 
by  himself  and  by  his  friends  with  such  ingenuous  familiarity, 
that  there  would  seem  to  be  at  first  sight  no  occasion  for  any 
further  research  into  his  labours,  or  for  any  special  revival 
of  interest  in  his  memory. 

There  are  some  circumstances,  however,  of  a  rather  peculiar 
kind  which  make  it  a  genuine  concern  of  English  literature 
to  ask  for  some  further  light,  to  review  what  the  great  his- 
torian left  at  his  premature  death,  and  to  bring  his  personality 
before  the  world  ere  the  means  of  so  doing  shall  have  been 
effaced  by  time.  The  National  Portrait  Gallery  (which  has 
likenesses  of  Peg  Wofnngton  and  of  John  Wilkes)  has  no 
portrait  at  all  of  Edward  Gibbon.  The  only  recognised 
portraits  are  in  private  hands,  and  not  accessible  to  the  public. 
The  house  at  Putney  in  which  he  was  born,  his  house  at  Lau- 
sanne, the  house  in  which  he  died,  in  St.  James's  Street,  have 
all  been  destroyed.  There  is  no  record  of  him  in  our  great 

77 


78  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

burying-places,  not  even  a  bust  or  a  tablet.  The  bones  of 
Edward  Gibbon  lie  in  a  vault  of  a  small  village  church  in 
Sussex,  a  spot  with  which,  except  by  friendship,  he  himself 
had  no  kind  of  connection,  and  where  he  was  merely  an  oc- 
casional visitor.  Not  one  in  a  thousand,  or  in  ten  thousand, 
of  his  ardent  admirers  has  ever  stood  beside  his  quiet  grave, 
and  few  of  them,  perhaps,  could  say  where  his  body  has  found 
rest.  The  public  at  large  has  never  seen  either  portrait, 
bust,  inscription,  manuscript,  relic,  or  any  visible  memento 
to  recall  to  them  the  greatest  historian  of  our  language,  or 
to  give  voice  to  the  honour  we  all  feel  for  one  of  the  most 
signal  triumphs  of  our  literature.  We  cannot  be  said  to 
have  erred  by  any  excess  of  hero-worship  in  the  case  of  our 
great  historian. 

But  there  is  something  more  than  this,  and  that  of  a  practi- 
cal kind.  Gibbon  died  before  he  had  completed  his  fifty- 
seventh  year.  He  was  not  worn  out;  his  mind  had  never 
been  in  such  activity;  he  still  talked  of  his  being  "a  good  life 
for  ten,  twelve,  or  perhaps  twenty  years."  His  great  work 
had  been  completed  more  than  six  years  before ;  he  was  still 
an  indefatigable  student,  and  was  preparing  his  Antiquities 
0}  the  House  0}  Brunswick.  Death  suddenly  cut  short  this 
busy  career  —  an  end  largely  due  to  neglect  and  imprudence 
—  about  a  week  after  his  return  from  his  friend's  house  in 
Sussex.  He  made  this  lifelong  friend,  John  B.  Holroyd, 
Lord  Sheffield,  his  executor,  who  buried  him  in  the  Sheffield 
mausoleum  in  the  church  of  Fletching,  near  East  Grinstead 
in  Sussex.  Lord  Sheffield  was  the  possessor  of  the  well-known 
portrait  by  Reynolds  and  that  by  Warton  dated  1774,  and 
stated  by  Lord  Sheffield  to  be  "by  far  the  best  likeness  of 
him  that  exists."  Lord  Sheffield  also  had  all  Gibbon's 
manuscripts,  his  memoirs,  essays,  diaries  and  journals, 
materials  for  the  House  of  Brunswick,  and  all  his  other  letters. 


THE   CENTENARY  OF  GIBBON  79 

As  is  well  known,  Lord  Sheffield  issued  two  quarto  volumes 
in  1796,  containing  the  historian's  miscellaneous  works; 
and  again,  in  1814,  he  issued  a  second  edition  in  five  octavo 
volumes,  with  much  additional  matter.  For  what  posthu- 
mous work  of  Gibbon's  it  possesses  the  world  is  exclusively 
indebted  to  Lord  Sheffield,  who  had  also  portraits,  manu- 
scripts, correspondence,  and  every  other  relic  of  the  great 
historian.  He  discharged  his  task  with  great  diligence,  dis- 
cretion, and  devotion  to  the  memory  of  his  friend.  But  after 
the  lapse  of  a  hundred  years,  and  the  vast  increase  in  the  world- 
wide fame  of  Edward  Gibbon,  it  seems  reasonable  to  ask 
that  the  present  generation  should  have  the  means  of  decid- 
ing for  itself  whether  his  literary  executor  has  omitted  nothing 
which  the  world  would  care  to  have. 

Friendship  —  constant,  pure,  generous,  and  warm  friend- 
ship —  was  the  ennobling  trait  in  Gibbon's  far  from  heroic 
nature;  and  it  formed  the  main  beauty  of  his  simple  life. 
His  love  for  his  aunt,  Catherine  Porten,  for  his  step-mother, 
for  Deyverdun,  for  the  Neckers,  redeems  his  biography  from 
commonplace.  But,  above  all,  his  friendship  with  Lord 
Sheffield  is  a  landmark  in  the  history  of  literature  in  their 
age.  Nothing  is  more  natural  or  more  honourable  than 
Holroyd's  devotion  to  his  great  friend's  memory.  He  buried 
him  in  his  own  family  tomb,  carried  off  all  his  remains,  edited 
his  memoirs  and  correspondence,  and  undertook  a  careful 
selection  of  his  manuscripts,  essays,  and  materials  for  pub- 
lication. Lord  Sheffield  made  himself  more  than  the  Boswell 
of  Gibbon ;  he  not  only  published  his  Life  and  remains,  but 
he  took  effective  care  that  no  one  else  should  ever  intrude 
on  his  own  labour  of  love,  or  add  by  one  line  to  the  Gibbon 
literature  which  he  himself  judged  fit  to  entrust  to  the  public 
eye.  Such  devotion,  such  zeal,  such  jealousy  for  the  memory 
of  his  illustrious  friend,  are  much  to  his  honour.  But  now 

\ 


8o  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

that  a  century  has  passed,  we  may  fairly  ask  to  have  some 
review  of  the  execution  of  this  difficult  task. 

This  is  not  the  case  of  a  great  writer  having  made  his  own 
selection  of  his  writings,  and  forbidding  publication  of 
whatever  he  judged  unworthy  of  his  reputation.  That  veto 
ought,  as  a  general  rule,  to  be  religiously  respected  —  though 
few  of  us  would  go  so  far  as  to  burn  the  manuscript  of  the 
Mneid.  The  detestable  trick  of  publishing  any  scrap  from 
a  great  man's  pen  that  an  editor  can  beg,  borrow,  or  steal 
should  be  sternly  suppressed.  There  is  nothing  of  the  kind 
here.  Gibbon  made  no  selection,  put  no  veto  on  any  pub- 
lication. Within  twenty  hours  of  his  death  he  talked  of 
living  for  years,  and  evidently  anticipated  a  new  literary 
career  and  the  completion  of  his  second  great  work.  The 
selection  made  of  his  remains,  the  veto  upon  any  further  pub- 
lication, was  the  sole  act  of  his  friend,  the  first  Lord  Sheffield ; 
and  it  is  now  a  hundred  years  old.  However  judicious  the 
choice,  however  proper  the  embargo,  it  cannot  be  held  con- 
clusive, without  fresh  examination,  by  posterity  for  evermore. 
Nor  can  it  possibly  bind  the  present  representative  of  the 
house,  who  was  born  long  after  the  death  of  the  first  Earl. 

There  is  a  strong,  perhaps  an  unreasonable  —  often  it  is  an 
unreasoned  —  prejudice  against  centenary  commemorations 
in  this  country.  But  the  practice  of  other  nations,  and  the 
growing  tendency  of  the  public  mind,  make  something  of  the 
kind  inevitable;  and  they  certainly  have  their  convenience. 
The  "Services,"  public  officials,  Society,  and  the  world  in 
general  would  greatly  miss  the  suppression  of  birthdays, 
jubilees,  and  anniversaries  of  royal  or  public  personages 
and  great  national  events.  A  centenary  is  often  a  convenient 
occasion  for  doing  some  forgotten  duty,  recalling  some  fading 
memory,  or  repairing  some  public  omission  or  default.  And 
it  is  a  public  default  that  our  national  collections  contain  no 


THE   CENTENARY  OF  GIBBON  8 1 

likeness  of  the  greatest  historian  of  modern  times,  that  our 
national  monuments  contain  not  a  tablet  to  record  his  name, 
that  his  memory  is  not  kept  alive  by  a  single  object  of  any 
kind  in  any  public  place  or  museum,  that  not  a  single  living 
scholar  has  ever  had  access  to  the  mass  of  writings  he  left, 
which  still  remain  sealed  up  in  a  country  house. 

There  can  be  no  need  at  the  present  day  for  any  new 
eulogium  upon  Gibbon's  work,  nor  any  doubt  as  to  his  true 
place  in  the  world's  abiding  literature.  As  the  Athenian 
orator  said:  "When  one  is  speaking  to  those  who  know, 
there  is  no  occasion  for  a  long  harangue."  The  late  Mr. 
Cotter  Morison  —  who,  after  so  much  historical  promise, 
was  cut  off  prematurely  —  has  given  us  in  his  admirable 
Life  of  Gibbon  (The  Men  of  Letters  Series,  1878)  an  estimate 
of  our  great  historian  so  just,  so  mature,  so  sympathetic, 
so  enthusiastic,  that  it  would  be  in  vain  to  attempt  to  add  to 
it.  Mr.  Morison  has  stated  with  decision  and  weight  Gibbon's 
shortcomings  and  limitations,  as  well  as  his  supreme  merit. 
The  Decline  and  Fall  is  not  the  work  of  a  philosopher ;  it  is 
not  altogether  scientific  history ;  it  is  not  without  very  grave 
misjudgments.  But  it  is  a  consummate  work  of  art;  it 
unites  vast  learning  with  a  perfect  mastery  of  lucid  narration, 
superb  good  sense  with  unfailing  acumen,  vivacious  wit, 
and  brilliant  vitality  that  irradiates  the  whole  enormous  field. 

The  Decline  and  Fall  is  the  most  perfect  book  that  English 
prose  (outside  its  fiction)  possesses,  meaning  by  book  a  work 
perfect  in  design,  totus,  teres,  atque  rotundus,  symmetrical, 
complete,  final,  and  executed  from  beginning  to  end  with  the 
same  mastery  on  one  uniform  plan.  There  is  no  other 
history  extant  which  can  be  put  beside  it,  if  we  reckon  all 
the  following  qualities  and  conditions:  (i)  its  immense 
field,  both  in  extent  of  area  and  in  epochs  of  time ;  (2)  its 
consummate  concentration  and  grasp  of  view ;  (3)  its  amaz- 


82  MEMORIES    AND    THOUGHTS 

ing  range  of  learning  and  curious  accuracy  of  detail ;  (4)  its 
pomp  of  movement  and  splendour  of  style.  There  have  been 
before  and  since  more  subtle  observers  and  more  truly  en- 
lightened spirits.  There  have  been  historians  quite  as  learned, 
who  have  made  even  fewer  errors,  and  some  who  have  written 
in  a  purer  form.  But  no  historian  has  ever  combined  all 
Gibbon's  supreme  gifts.  And,  accordingly,  the  Decline  and 
Fall  remains  the  type  of  the  perfect  literary  history,  just 
as  the  Zeus  of  Pheidias  remained  the  type  of  the  father  of 
gods  and  men. 

As  Mr.  Cotter  Morison  has  so  judiciously  explained,  Gib- 
bon was  the  first  to  give  to  the  world  a  complete  history  on 
the  largest  scale  and  with  profound  original  research.  And 
his  subject  is  one  so  mighty,  his  scheme  so  vast,  his  execution 
so  brilliant,  that  it  still  remains  in  a  class  by  itself  —  as  yet 
unapproached,  gaining  by  the  efflux  of  time  rather  than  losing 
in  value.  His  true  theme  is  the  complex  stormy  evolution 
of  the  modern  world  out  of  the  ancient  world,  the  terrible 
and  laboured  transition  from  polytheism  and  slavery  to 
monotheism  and  free  industry.  And  this  is  the  most  critical 
and  protracted  transition  in  the  annals  of  mankind.  The 
geography  of  his  subject  embraces  the  old  world  from  the 
Hebrides  to  the  Indus,  from  the  deserts  of  Tartary  to  the 
mountains  of  Atlas.  His  topic  is  the  history  of  civilisation 
over  thirteen  centuries.  And  this  vast  canvas  is  filled  without 
confusion,  without  effort,  without  discord,  by  one  glowing, 
distinct,  harmonious  composition. 

This  is  the  supreme  merit  of  Edward  Gibbon,  that  he  pro- 
duced the  first  perfect  literary  history  on  a  grand  scale  — 
one  which  still  remains  the  most  perfect  we  know.  The 
only  ancient  history  which  in  breadth  of  subject,  epical  splen- 
dour of  imagination  and  beauty  of  narration,  can  be  com- 
pared with  his  is  the  Roman  history  of  Livy,  of  which,  alas, 


THE   CENTENARY  OF  GIBBON  83 

we  have  only  fragments.  But  we  can  hardly  regard  the  de- 
lightful chansons  de  gestes  of  the  glorious  Augustan  im- 
provisatore  as  history  in  our  sense  of  the  term,  for  his  whole 
soul  turned  to  rhetorical  effect  and  not  to  authentic  record. 
But  Gibbon  fused  the  pomp  and  clang  of  Livy's  epic  with  the 
conscientious  veracity  of  Caesar's  Memoirs.  Herodotus  has 
a  field  as  wide  almost  as  Gibbon's,  a  spirit  of  inquiry  as  in- 
satiable, and  has  painted  certain  great  scenes  with  an  even 
nobler  art.  But  the  Father  of  History  was  obviously  not 
equipped  with  the  elaborate  historical  apparatus  of  a  modern 
library;  and  his  ever  fresh  and  fascinating  muses  do  not 
group  into  an  organic  composition  of  the  highest  art.  Each 
muse  in  turn  takes  up  her  favourite  subject  —  legend,  an- 
tiquities, voyages  and  travels,  anecdotes,  fairy  tales,  memoirs, 
and  battle  scenes  —  but  their  inexhaustible  encyclopaedia 
does  not  form  one  continuous  epic.  Gibbon  has  combined 
the  epic  unity  of  Livy  with  the  infinite  variety  of  Herodotus, 
the  vivacity  and  portraiture  of  Plutarch,  and  the  punctilious 
truthfulness  of  Caesar.  He  combined  the  minute  accuracy  and 
vivid  detail  of  the  best  memoirs  with  the  vast  survey  and  poetic 
transfiguration  peculiar  to  the  highest  type  of  history.  And 
he  was  the  first,  and  the  greatest,  of  those  who  have  done  this. 
The  true  devotees  of  Gibbon  are  the  foremost  in  restrain- 
ing their  admiration  within  due  limits,  and  in  frankly  admitting 
the  grave  shortcomings  of  the  master.  No  one  has  done 
this  more  thoroughly  than  Mr.  Morison.  He  has  abundantly 
shown  that  Gibbon  is  in  no  sense  to  be  judged  as  a  philosophic 
historian,  that  he  was  not  a  philosopher  at  all,  that  he  did  not 
penetrate  into  the  deepest  truths  behind  the  record  of  e^yents, 
that  he  sadly  misjudged  some  things  of  prime  importance. 
But  in  Gibbon's  century  the  philosophy  of  history  was  in 
mere  germ,  and  what  are  now  'the  commonplaces  of  every 
student  were  truths  concealed  from  them  of  old  time.  No 


84  MEMORIES  AND    THOUGHTS 

one  will  pretend  that  Gibbon  possessed  the  profound  insight 
into  the  human  mind  of  Thucydides,  or  of  Tacitus,  of  Julius 
Caesar;  we  may  add  of  De  Comines,  of  Bacon,  or  of  Hume. 
He  did  not  see  as  deeply  behind  the  veil  of  the  heart  and  of 
social  movements  as  any  of  these.  But  of  all  these  men, 
Hume  alone  wrote  history  on  a  really  grand  canvas,  and,  as 
we  all  know,  Hume  painted  a  great  historical  picture  without 
"studying  from  the  life"  at  all.  He  did  all  that  a  man  of 
genius  and  a  consummate  writer  could  do  with  a  very  cursory 
knowledge  of  his  facts.  But  Gibbon,  though  a  great  writer, 
was  even  greater  in  research.  And  though  he  was  not  a  pro- 
found moralist,  and  wrote  before  such  a  science  as  sociology 
had  been  dreamed  of,  his  task  was  very  different  from  that 
of  keen  thinkers  who  meditate  upon  men  and  events  of  their 
own  age,  or  on  things  that  passed  under  the  eyes  of  their 
own  fathers  and  grandfathers.  The  writer  of  history  has  a 
very  different  task  from  that  of  the  writer  of  annals  or  memoirs 
—  and  in  many  ways  a  much  more  difficult  task. 

Let  us  never  pretend  that  Gibbon  was  a  philosopher. 
Machiavelli,  Bacon,  Hobbes,  Montesquieu,  Leibnitz,  Hume, 
perhaps  we  may  add  Vico  and  Pascal,  had  yet  deeper  insight 
to  follow  the  dynamics  of  society.  Both  Montesquieu  and 
Hume,  his  immediate  predecessors,  stood  on  a  totally  superior 
level  as  social  philosophers.  With  all  their  glaring  miscon- 
ceptions, prejudices,  and  blunders,  even  Bossuet,  Voltaire, 
Condorcet,  and  Burke  had  a  clearer  vision  into  social  evolu- 
tion and  the  grand  battle  of  ideas  and  manners  than  ever 
Gibbon  attained  in  his  fifty  years  of  voracious  historical 
study.  Nor  need  we  deny  that  some  of  Gibbon's  own  con- 
temporaries wrote  history  more  in  the  spirit  of  philosophy. 
Voltaire,  with  all  his  perversity,  was  an  even  superior  artist, 
and  had  a  truer  sense  of  the  paramount  mastery  of  ideas. 
And  Robertson's  State  of  Europe  showed  a  sounder  historical 


THE   CENTENARY  OF  GIBBON  85 

judgment  than  the  Decline  and  Fall.  Robertson's  best  work 
preceded  Gibbon's  by  some  ten  or  fifteen  years;  Voltaire's 
and  Hume's  both  by  some  twenty-five  or  thirty  years.  So 
that  Gibbon  was  certainly  not  the  earliest  real  historian  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  and  he  was  certainly  by  no  means 
the  most  eminent  social  thinker.  Yet,  notwithstanding, 
given  all  these  qualifications,  he  was  the  greatest  literary 
historian. 

He  was  essentially  the  consummate  literary  artist  who 
transmutes  mountains  of  exact  research  into  a  complex 
mass,  glowing  with  life  in  all  its  parts,  and  glorious  to  con- 
template as  a  whole.  This  is  a  literary,  rather  than  a  philo- 
sophical, feat ;  and  as  such  it  must  be  judged.  Its  art  is  akin 
to  that  of  the  epic  poet  who  works  out  a  grand  plot  in  sym- 
metrical order,  with  episodes,  incidents,  digressions,  but  on  a 
consistent  scheme,  with  beauty  in  each  part  and  memorable 
form  in  each  line.  Now,  it  is  beyond  dispute  that  Gibbon's 
subject  and  scheme  far  transcend  in  breadth  and  importance 
to  humanity  those  of  any  other  historian,  even  those  of  He- 
rodotus and  Livy,  Henri  Martin,  Grote  or  Milman,  if  we  put 
aside  such  manuals  as  those  of  Heeren,  Becker,  Ranke,  and 
Freeman.  This  is  also  beyond  doubt,  that  no  historian  of 
ancient  or  modern  times  has  ever  shown  the  creative  and 
formative  imagination  triumphing  over  such  transcendent 
difficulties  and  working  on  so  grand  a  scale.  Carlyle's 
French  Revolution  is  perhaps  a  typical  example  of  this  power 
to  infuse  exact  record  with  poetic  vitality,  but  Carlyle's 
masterpiece  gives  us  the  story  of  five,  or  at  most  of  twenty 
years,  and  of  one  country,  or,  rather,  of  one  city.  Gibbon's 
epic  history  is  the  story  of  mankind  over  the  planet  during 
thirteen  centuries.  And  Gibbon's  story  is  even  more  accurate, 
more  brilliant^  more  organic,  more  truly  a  work  of  art  than  is 
Carlyle's. 


86  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

And  what  vigour,  what  wit,  what  a  clarion  ring  in  every 
sentence  from  the  first  line  of  the  first  volume  to  the  closing 
phrase  of  the  last !  How  it  holds  the  attention,  how  it  leaves 
its  imprint  on  the  memory,  how  it  conjures  up  scenes  to  the 
eye.  It  is  like  watching  some  interminable  procession,  as 
of  a  Roman  triumph  —  some  Caesar  returning  from  his 
Eastern  victories,  with  warriors  of  all  races,  costumes,  and 
colours,  and  the  trophies  of  barbaric  peoples,  and  the  roar 
'of  many  tribes,  strange  beasts,  the  pomp  of  war,  and  the 
spoils  of  cities.  We  need  not  insist  that  it  is  a  perfect  style, 
or  a  style  without  grave  limitations  or  defects.  It  has  not 
the  lucid  simplicity  of  Voltaire  and  of  Hume,  nor  the  grace 
of  Addison,  nor  the  pathos  of  Burke.  It  is  too  elaborate,  too 
stiff  with  jewelry,  and  too  uniform  in  texture.  And  perhaps 
these  defects  have  induced  the  most  versatile  of  living  critics 
to  put  on  record  his  memorable  saying  that  he  did  not  care 
for  Gibbon  except  for  his  Memoirs.  This  is  as  if  one  said 
that  he  did  not  care  for  Shakespeare  except  for  the  Sonnets. 

A  famous  authority  on  the  beautiful  was  disappointed 
with  the  Atlantic ;  but  we  must  not  take  these  purists  too 
literally.  The  Atlantic  becomes  rather  grandiose,  and  at 
last  somewhat  monotonous;  and  so,  Gibbon's  interminable 
antithesis  and  unbending  majesty  do  pall  upon  the  constant 
reader,  if  he  takes  in  too  much  at  a  sitting.  But  how  splendid 
is  the  vigour,  the  point,  the  precision  of  the  language ;  and, 
with  all  its  faults,  how  well  fitted  to  rehearse  these  "strange 
stories  of  the  deaths  of  kings,"  how  akin  to  the  theme  and  to 
the  glowing  scheme  of  the  painter's  colouring !  It  is  impos- 
sible to  hurry  through  your  Gibbon ;  you  cannot  skip ;  you 
cannot  take  in  a  description  at  a  glance;  you  cannot  leave 
out  the  adjectives,  or  jump  the  second  half  of  a  clause.  You 
may  take  up  your  Decline  and  Fall,  of  which  you  can  repeat 
pages  by  heart;  you  may  have  read  it  fifteen  times,  but  the 


THE   CENTENARY  OF  GIBBON  87 

sixteenth  reading  will  give  you  a  phrase  of  which  you  had  not 
previously  caught  the  full  sense,  or  throw  light  on  something 
which  has  long  been  a  puzzle.  And  how  fixed  in  the  memory 
are  the  quips  and  innuendos,  the  epigrams  and  the  epithets, 
with  which  the  page  coruscates  like  a  piece  of  jewelry.  It 
may  not  be  a  pure  style,  it  is  certainly  not  a  model  style,  but 
it  is  one  that  gives  a  gorgeous  colour  to  a  supremely  organic 
composition. 

Needless,  too,  now  to  enlarge  on  Gibbon's  conscientious 
research,  his  wonderful  accuracy,  and  the  instinct  which 
carries  him  sure-footed  across  the  rotten  and  worthless  rub- 
bish whereon  he  had  to  tread.  "That  wonderful  man 
monopolised,"  says  Freeman,  "the  historical  genius  and  the 
historical  learning  of  a  whole  generation.  .  .  .  The  encyclo- 
paedic history  of  1300  years,  as  the  grandest  of  historical 
designs,  carried  out  alike  with  wonderful  power  and  with 
wonderful  accuracy,  must  ever  keep  its  place."  This  from 
the  most  scrupulously  accurate  of  modern  historians,  who  so 
seldom  found  anything  accurate  outside  of  the  Constitutional 
History  of  England,  is  conclusive.  The  accuracy  of  Gib- 
bon's work  is  only  equalled  by  the  vast  range  of  his  know- 
ledge ;  and  even  this  is  surpassed  by  the  grandeur  of  his  de- 
sign and  the  splendour  of  his  handling.  Such  accuracy  never 
before  went  with  such  brilliancy ;  such  breadth  of  conception 
with  such  literary  art.  Thucydides,  for  all  his  consummate 
veracity,  is  often  obscure,  trivial,  and  sometimes  tedious. 
Tacitus,  with  all  his  insight  into  character  and  mastery  of 
phrase,  remains  always  the  Roman  noble  of  cast-iron  type 
and  limited  world .__We  no  more  expect  critical  exactness 
from  Herodotus  or  Livy  than  we  do  from  Homer  or  Virgil. 
The  great  painters  of  historical  events  are  not  supposed  to 
be  given  to  laborious  research;  the  great  memoir- writers 
are  ipso  facto  confined  to  their  own  memory ;  and  the  pro- 


88  MEMORIES  AND  THOUGHTS 

found  antiquarians  are  almost  invariably  dull.  But  we  take 
down  our  Gibbon  time  after  time,  knowing  that  we  can  turn 
up  chapter  and  verse  for  every  sentence,  and  yet  are  stirred 
and  delighted  by  his  pictures,  as  if  it  were  a  familiar  poem  or 
a  work  of  fiction. 

This  need  not  debar  us  from  admitting  very  serious  de- 
fects in  his  work.  His  perverse  misconception  of  Christianity, 
his  cynical  depreciation  of  its  noblest  chiefs,  his  incurable 
taste  for  scandal,  his  disbelief  in  heroism,  in  popular  en- 
thusiasm, in  purity,  in  self-devotion,  and  his  own  epicurean, 
unromantic,  aristocratic  habit  of  mind,  very  seriously  blot 
his  great  work  and  cloud  his  own  memory.  Neander, 
Gfrorer,  Von  Sybel,  Michaud,  Lacroix,  Guizot,  Milman, 
Michelet,  Carlyle,  Froude,  Freeman,  Green,  have  a  far 
truer  conception  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  Crusades,  of  Feudal- 
ism and  its  great  chiefs,  of  the  Catholic  Church  and  its  services 
to  civilisation,  than  has  Gibbon.  They  are  constantly  right 
where  he  is  wrong,  and  they  tell  us  much  of  which  he  is  quite 
uninformed.  But,  for  all  that,  no  one  of  these  excellent  men 
has  given  us  a  single  work  which  can  compare  with  the  Decline 
and  Fall  in  breadth,  in  knowledge,  in  unity  of  conception, 
and  in  splendour  of  form. 

Let  us,  then,  in  the  hundredth  year  after  its  author's  death, 
lay  a  wreath  upon  his  tomb,  for  we  specially  need  to  keep  him 
as  a  type  before  us.  The  age  is  one  of  interminable  specialism, 
colossal  research,  microscopic  minuteness  of  examination; 
and  our  mountains  of  documents  are  become  very  Pelions 
upon  Ossa.  All  this  is  right  and  necessary ;  and  Gibbon  was 
an  accomplished  specialist,  a  glutton  of  research ;  no  man  so 
microscopic,  so  minute,  so  documentary,  in  the  true  sense 
and  in  the  right  way.  But  then  Edward  Gibbon  was  much 
more.  His  gigantic  accumulation  of  facts  and  indomitable 
accuracy  were  not  the  ends  of  his  labour  —  but  the  instru- 


THE   CENTENARY  OF  GIBBON  89 

ments.  Research  was  to  him,  like  grammar  or  scholarship, 
not  his  title  to  honour,  but  his  raw  material  for  thought  and 
creation.  He  did  not  discharge  his  note-books  in  a  heap  like 
bricks  from  the  brickyard,  and  leave  us  to  build  them  up  into 
a  house  as  we  pleased.  He  built  us  the  house,  and  did  not 
ask  us  to  come  into  it  till  it  was  perfect  from  foundation  to 
roof-ridge,  ornamented,  elaborated,  habitable,  and  pleasant 
to  dwell  in.  His  teeming  brain  disdained  the  aqueous 
placidity  with  which  Bavius  flows  on  through  one  hundred 
mild  and  meandering  chapters ;  his  creative  genius  abhorred 
the  rough-hewn  masses  of  stone  which  year  by  year  Maevius 
unloads  upon  us  from" a  thousand  quarries.  When  we  grow 
weary  of  histories  which  are  nothing  but  undigested  note- 
books or  copies  from  the  dullest  jottings  of  some  contemporary 
memoir  —  histories  without  form,  without  mind,  without 
imagination,  without  purpose,  without  beginning,  middle,  or 
end  —  when  we  yearn  for  a  book  —  for  a  man,  an  idea  within 
the  cover,  then,  for  the  tenth  or  the  twentieth  time,  we  take 
down  the  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  and  we  have 
one  of  the  greatest  dramas  of  human  civilisation,  rehearsed 
with  the  ordered  imagination  of  a  poet  and  the  monumental 
form  of  a  consummate  master  of  language. 


THE  dedication  to  the  public  of  the  house  in  Chelsea 
where  Thomas  Carlyle  lived  and  died  marks  an  onward  step 
in  our  growing  habit  of  reverence  for  the  earthly  work  amongst 
us  of  our  mighty  dead.  So  far  as  I  know,  this  is  the  first 
time  that  London  has,  so  to  speak,  consecrated  an  entire 
house  to  the  memory  of  one  of  her  worthies.  Long  ago,  the 
house  in  which  Shakespeare  was  born  has  been  preserved  for 
the  nation,  and,  indeed,  for  the  civilised  world.  Recently, 
the  little  cottage  which  sheltered  Milton  at  Chalfont  whilst 
he  wrote  his  last  poem  has  been  given  to  the  public.  The 
homes  of  Scott,  of  Byron,  of  Shelley,  though  in  private  hands, 
are  the  object  of  many  a  pilgrimage.  But  London  has  hith- 
erto been  even  more  chary  than  England  in  general  to  take 
note  of  the  habitations  and  haunts  of  its  famous  denizens. 
How  few  Londoners  have  even  seen  the  house  in  Gough 
Square  where  Johnson  wrote  his  Dictionary,  or  the  house  in 
which  Dryden  died,  or  the  gravestone  of  Goldsmith  in  the 
Temple,  or  the  houses  where  Dickens  and  Thackeray  wrote. 

But  now  the  friends  and  admirers  of  Carlyle  have  rescued 
from  decay  the  house  in  which  he  toiled,  poured  forth  his  soul, 
and  died;  and  they  have  dedicated  it  to  the  public  as  a 
memorial,  just  as  the  followers  of  Auguste  Comte  have  ac- 
quired and  preserved  the  house  in  which  he  lived  and  died  in 
Paris.  It  is  a  kind  of  hero-worship  not  to  be  undertaken 

lightly,  not  to  be  pushed  too  far,  apt  to  degenerate  into  senti- 

90 


THE   CARLYLE  HOUSE  91 

mentality,  fussiness,  cliqueism,  and  other  trivialities  and  ego- 
isms. But  with  Thomas  Carlyle  we  are  safe.  Our  regard 
for  his  memory,  his  home,  the  portraits  and  relics  of  him  is 
genuine,  spontaneous,  irrepressible.  Chelsea  —  which  has 
been  the  residence  of  Sir  Thomas  More  and  Locke,  of 
Swift  and  Steele,  and  Smollett  and  Walpole,  of  Leigh  Hunt, 
Turner,  and  George  Eliot — has  long  been  vocal  with  memo- 
ries of  Thomas  Carlyle.  There  are  Carlyle  Square,  Carlyle 
Mansions,  the  statue  within  a  few  yards  of  his  home,  and  now 
there  is  a  Carlyle  House,  a  public  museum,  the  centre  of  a 
general  pilgrimage. 

Let  no  one  suppose  from  the  words  of  qualification,  even 
of  reproach,  which  are  so  often  used  about  Carlyle  by  those 
who  reverence  him  most,  that  such  dissent  is  incompatible 
with  profound  respect.  Few  of  us,  indeed,  are  followers 
of  the  gospel  of  Carlyle  —  if  there  can  be  a  gospel  of  any 
idiosyncrasy  so  solitary  and  so  f ulminant  —  we  are  not 
followers,  but  grateful  hearers  of  his  words.  We  cannot 
speak  of  him  without  breaking  out  into  language  that  sounds 
like  criticism,  because  we  do  not  care  to  swear  allegiance  to 
his  infallibility.  He  himself  has  taught  all  who  care  to  hear 
him  to  be  sincere  first,  to  speak  out  what  is  in  them,  and  to 
take  orders  from  none  in  the  free  air  of  personal  beliefs. 
Even  as  we  listened  to  Mr.  Morjey's  eloquent  and  wise  address, 
an  enthusiast  was  heard  to  whisper  that  the  chairman  him- 
self seemed  at  times  to  take  upon  him  the  office  of  advocatus 
Diaboli.  I  have  had  occasion  to  speak  of  Carlyle  as  an  in- 
tellectual power  in  more  than  one  piece,  and  in  each  I  have 
been  stirred  to  disclaim,  to  qualify,  to  abate  very  much  in  the 
homage  it  was  my  purpose  to  offer.  It  is  the  peculiar  quality 
of  the  great  teachers  of  new  truth,  especially  in  the  moral 
and  spiritual  realm,  to  awaken  what  he  so  truly  called  the 
"wrestlings  of  soul,"  which  go  down  to  the  depths  of  defiance 


92  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

as  well  as  rise  to  heights  of  loyalty  and  trust.  All  the  great 
inspirers  of  youth  stir  these  wrestlings.  There  was  no  truer 
prophecy  in  the  Gospel  than  the  words,  "I  came  not  to  send 
peace  —  but  a  sword."  And  so  Carlyle,  like  all  the  deeper 
moralists,  sent  a  sword  into  modern  society,  into  each  hearer's 
spirit.  It  pierced  him  to  the  quick,  and  stung  him  into  many  a 
struggle  within  him  which  seldom  issued  in  simple  discipleship. 
But  the  dedication  to  his  memory  of  his  home  in  Chelsea, 
to  be  for  ever  a  sort  of  London  cenotaph  of  his  genius,  is  the 
season  for  other  thoughts  than  for  "wrestlings  of  spirits"; 
it  calls  for  sweeter  and  more  pious  recollections.  I  was  one 
of  those  who,  without  being  in  any  sense  intimates  or  friends, 
were  occasionally  admitted  to  his  house,  and  enjoyed  the 
privilege  of  hearing  him  talk.  In  response  to  sundry  mes- 
sages that  he  would  see  me,  I  called  one  afternoon  in  Cheyne 
Row,  and  was  received  with  a  most  gracious  and  genial 
courtesy.  He  made  me  feel  at  home  at  once,  and  he  talked 
on  with  a  simple  and  hearty  openness  of  thought,  full  of 
drollery,  epigram,  laughter,  and  racy  deliverance  on  men  and 
things,  with  warm  kindliness  towards  his  visitor,  a  manly 
forgetfulness  of  himself  and  his  position  as  acknowledged 
master  in  letters,  and  an  utter  absence  of  embarrassment, 
discontent,  or  spleen.  He  rolled  forth  Latter- Day  Pamphlets 
by  the  hour  together  in  the  very  words,  with  all  the  nicknames, 
expletives,  and  ebullient  tropes  that  were  so  familiar  to  us  in 
print,  with  the  full  voice,  the  Dumfries  burr,  and  the  kindling 
eye  which  all  his  friends  recall.  It  seemed  to  me  the  first 
time  that  I  sat  at  his  fireside  and  listened  to  him  that  it  was  an 
illusion.  I  seemed  to  be  already  in  the  Elysian  fields  listen- 
ing to  the  spirit  rather  than  to  the  voice  of  the  mighty  "Sar- 
tor." Could  printed  essay  and  spoken  words  be  so  absolutely 
the  same?  Was  he  reciting  one  of  his  old  pamphlets  com- 
mitted to  memory,  or  was  he  really  speaking  impromptu  as 


THE    CARLYLE   HOUSE  93 

thoughts  passed  through  his  brain  ?  Was  this  really  Thomas 
Carlyle,  or  was  it  some  mysterious  personation  of  the  man, 
made  up  to  represent  the  Sage,  and  dramatising  his  familiar 
speech  ?  No !  it  was  all  perfectly  spontaneous,  frank,  and 
simple ;  and  the  generous  old  man  was  simply  talking  freely 
to  a  young  man  who  came  to  hear  him  talk.  And  when, 
after  a  most  memorable  afternoon,  he  rose  to  bid  me  farewell, 
and  conducted  me  to  his  staircase  with  a  sweet  and  stately 
courtesy,  I  thought  I  had  rarely  seen  a  more  simple  and  genial 
dignity.  How  the  fierceness  and  crabbedness  which  the 
Memoirs  seem  to  attribute  to  much  of  his  earlier  life  could 
ever  have  dwelt  in  a  nature  so  urbane,  so  hearty,  so  sym- 
pathetic as  that  which  I  found  in  his  later  years,  is  more  than 
I  can  unravel.  I  have  seen,  and  have  spoken  with,  some 
strong  and  famous  men  — with  Gambetta,  Mazzini,  Garibaldi, 
John  S.  Mill,  Tourgenieff  —  but  I  can  remember  no  more  in- 
tense and  impressive  personality  than  that  of  Thomas  Carlyle. 
I  had  seen  him  in  earlier  years  in  public  places  and  in 
society,  walking  with  Froude  and  Fitzjames  Stephen,  or  on 
his  historic  and  "humorous"  horse  Fritz.  I  had  even  seen 
him  receiving  with  artless  gratification,  in  a  great  London 
"crush,"  the  fascinating  homage  of  many  a  grande  dame 
("the  politest  and  gracefulest  kind  of  woman,"  we  know  the 
Master  pronounced  her  to  be)  —  but  it  was  not  till  his  latest 
years  that  I  had  speech  of  him  in  his  own  house.  He  once 
took  me  as  his  companion  in  a  walk,  and  gave  me  earnest 
and  friendly  counsel  to  betake  myself  from  law  to  letters  — 
a  piece  of  advice  which  perhaps  came  too  late  in  my  life  to 
be  of  any  service  to  me.  On  another  occasion  I  remember 
calling  upon  him  at  the  instance  of  the  widow  of  my  dear 
and  honoured  friend,  Jules  Michelet,  the  historian.  Madame 
Michelet  was  then  labouring,  with  all  the  energy  of  love  and 
sorrow,  to  raise  a  marble  monument  to  her  husband  in  Pere 


94  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

la  Chaise  at  Paris,  and  she  was  anxious  to  have  the  thought  and 
culture  of  Europe  to  join  in  the  testimony  to  the  historian- 
poet  of  France.  I  accepted  the  commission  with  reluctance 
and  doubt ;  but  Carlyle  received  the  request  with  readiness, 
spoke  warmly  of  Michelet  as  a  genuine  man,  and  himself 
subscribed  the  sum  of  five  pounds.  The  gift  of  these  English 
admirers  (amongst  whom  were  also  enrolled  the  names  of 
Charles  Darwin,  Joseph  Chamberlain,  and  John  Morley) 
was  recorded  on  the  beautiful  memorial  which  we  see  to-day 
over  the  grave  of  the  historian  in  Paris.  On  this  occasion, 
as  on  so  many  others  which  have  come  to  my  notice,  the 
whole  nature  of  Carlyle  was  inspired  by  generosity,  sympathy, 
candour,  manliness  —  genial  interest  in  the  young  and  the 
struggling  ones,  ungrudging  homage  to  great  character  and  to 
true  genius. 

It  may  have  been  with  some  surprise  that  certain  younger 
men  heard  Mr.  Morley, with  all  his  judicial  discrimination  of 
Carlyle's  powers,  speak  of  him  as  "the  foremost  figure  in 
English  literature  during  the  greater  part  of  his  life."  And 
I  have  ventured  to  call  him,  "by  virtue  of  his  original  genius 
and  mass  of  stroke,  the  literary  dictator  of  Victorian  prose." 
Many  of  our  younger  friends  are  puzzled  by  such  language. 
What  does  it  mean?  To  my  mind  it  means  this.  Not 
indeed  that  Carlyle  was  ever  a  critic,  an  arbiter,  a  model, 
as  Addison  was,  or  as  Johnson  was,  or  as  Voltaire  in  France 
and  Goethe  in  Germany  have  been.  Macaulay,  Hallam,  or 
Southey  more  nearly  filled  such  a  part.  But  the  peculiar 
power  of  Carlyle  was,  by  his  superb  independence  and  the 
fiery  impact  of  his  genius,  to  kindle  a  great  variety  of  move- 
ments, and  wake  into  life  many  active  minds.  The  Victorian 
age  has  been  one  of  singular  activity,  and  of  erratic  and  ad- 
venturous energy.  How  many  forms  of  this  energy  owed 
inspiration  .  to  Carlyle !  Ruskin,  Froude,  Kingsley,  the 


THE   CARLYLE  HOUSE  95 

Stephens,  Tyndall,  were  avowed  followers  of  his,  whilst  we  can 
see  the  traces  of  his  mind  in  Tennyson,  in  Huxley,  in  Maurice, 
in  Freeman,  in  John  Morley.  And  if  Browning,  Arnold, 
George  Eliot,  Swinburne,  Morris,  Symonds,  move  in  a  differ- 
ent world  from  that  of  "Sartor,"  they  have  all  been  held  spell- 
bound at  seasons  "by  the  glittering  eye"  of  that  Ancient 
Mariner.  Of  whom  else,  in  the  era  between  Byron  and 
Darwin,  can  the  same  be  said?  No  one  would  compare 
Carlyle  to  Socrates.  But  as  the  Sage  of  Athens  used  to  call 
his  function  simply  that  of  the  obstetric  physician,  who 
enabled  those  big  with  ideas  to  bring  them  forth  into  the 
living  air,  so  Carlyle  had  something  of  this  same  gift  —  that 
of  helping  ideas  to  live  and  to  come  forth.  Socrates,  too, 
disclaimed  any  system,  any  philosophy,  any  school.  But  a 
dozen  schools  of  very  different  kinds  rose  out  of  that  ferment 
of  original  questioning  which  the  great  moralist  and  insatiable 
cross-examiner  had  scattered  far  and  wide  in  the  market-place 
of  thought. 

Carlyle,  too,  had  "his  daemon,"  though  what  his  "daemon" 
was  we  know  as  little  as  in  the  case  of  Socrates.  Nor  do 
any  two  of  us  agree  exactly  as  to  what  that  daemon  revealed 
to  him  or  to  us.  But  he  set  us  all  thinking;  he  inspired  us 
with  courage;  he  taught  us  to  be  honest,  zealous,  truthful, 
reverent.  Alas !  he  was  .in  much  the  very  opposite  of  Soc- 
rates, who  lived  in  the  world,  with  the  world,  a  heroic  citizen, 
a  soldier,  a  public  counsellor,  tolerant,  jovial,  great-hearted, 
and  indulgent  almost  to  a  fault.  Carlyle  shut  himself  up 
with  his  books  in  that  little  home  where  his  memory  is  now 
enshrined,  knew  nothing  of  affairs  except  through  books,  and 
was  too  disdainful  of  the  world  outside  to  sympathise  with  its 
troubles  or  to  comprehend  its  needs.  Socrates  was  a  true 
Sage.  Carlyle  was  preacher,  rhapsodist,  student.  But  it 
will  be  long  before  we  see  his  like  again. 


SCIENTIFIC  HISTORY 

1906 

MR.  HERBERT  PAUL'S  most  interesting  Life  of  Froude 
has  raised  again  the  unsolved  problem  of  the  true  method  of 
writing  history.  As  Horace  told  his  friend  long  ago,  it  was  a 
business  full  of  peril  and  chance,  like  walking  over  the  crust 
of  lava.  But  in  our  age  its  difficulties  are  greatly  increased. 
Not  only  has  the  historian  to  meet  the  criticism  of  rival  par- 
tisans, but  the  scientific  school  and  the  literary  school  wage 
incessant  war  on  each  other.  And  history  to-day  is  being 
made  faster  than  it  can  be  recorded.  As  the  greatest  of  his- 
torians put  it  in  immortal  words,  a  strictly  historical  narrative 
of  facts  is  wont  to  disappoint  those  who  want  to  be  interested. 
Shall  history  aim  at  being  "a  possession  for  all  time,"  or 
shall  it  seek  to  be  "the  success  of  the  hour"? 

The  conspicuous  champions  of  Literary  History  were,  in 
old  days,  Livy  and  Plutarch;  in  modern  times,  Clarendon, 
Hume,  Robertson,  Alison,  Michelet,  Thiers.  The  scientific 
historians  of  our  own  day  hold  by  Mommsen,  Freeman, 
Stubbs,  and  Gardiner;  and,  we  may  add,  so  do  the  official 
representatives  of  history  in  our  Universities  —  such  as 
Bury,  Firth,  and  Oman.  By  common  consent,  Gibbon  com- 
bined Research  and  Literature  as  nearly  as  we  are  ever 
destined  to  see  them  combined.  And  Macaulay,  Froude, 
Carlyle,  we  may  perhaps  add  Green,  have  striven  to  do  the 
same.  All  four  have  a  multitude  of  readers  —  and  long  will 

96 


SCIENTIFIC  HISTORY  97 

have  them,  owing  to  their  brilliant  literary  power.  The 
question  still  is,  Can  we  trust  them  as  we  trust  Mommsen  and 
Stubbs,  Gardiner,  Bury,  and  Firth? 

Of  all  the  literary  historians  of  our  day  Froude  has  been  the 
most  fiercely  rebuked  by  the  scientific  school.  And  now  two 
warm  admirers  of  his,  one  English,  the  other  foreign,  have 
given  us  a  studied  defence  of  the  Freudian  method.  Mr. 
Herbert  Paul,  in  his  fascinating  Life,  very  properly  devotes 
more  than  a  quarter  of  his  book  to  examining  all  that  can  be 
said  for  and  against  the  History  of  England.  Froude  had 
"a  doctrine  to  propound,  a  gospel  to  preach,"  says  Mr.  Paul. 
And  Dr.  Sarolea  of  Brussels,  and  now  of  the  University  of 
Edinburgh,  in  an  eloquent  volume  of  Essays,  proclaims 
Froude  to  be  a  great  historian,  the  "national  historian  of 
England,"  on  the  very  ground  of  his  passionate  prejudices  on 
behalf  of  persons  and  institutions.  The  historian,  says  Dr. 
Sarolea,  cannot  be  impartial,  for  reasons  whether  of  art, 
morality,  or  sociology. 

Mr.  Paul,  as  may  be  expected,  takes  a  much  more  guarded 
view.  He  is  eminently  aware  of  the  idiosyncrasy  and  temp- 
tations which  coloured  Froude's  splendid  narrative.  "His 
besetting  sin  was  a  love  of  paradox."  "He  was  an  advocate, 
an  incomparably  brilliant  advocate."  "He  was  not  a  chron- 
icler, but  an  artist,  a  moralist,  and  a  man  of  genius." 
And  all  through  his  vigorous  fourth  chapter  Mr.  Paul  elo- 
quently describes  the  spirit  which  sustained  Froude  in  his 
immense  task,  and  the  devotion  with  which  he  pursued  it  over 
long  years  of  toil.  Mr.  Paul  does  not  mince  matters  as  to 
Froude's  defects.  "  He  was  an  advocate  rather  than  a  judge." 
He  gave  undue  prominence  to  facts  which  told  for  his  own 
cause.  It  is  notorious  that  he  was  not  always  accurate  in 
detail.  He  set  out  on  his  task  with  a  polemical  purpose. 
"Misquotation  was  too  frequent  a  habit  with  him."  Even 


98  MEMORIES   AND  THOUGHTS 

when  gross  errors  had  been  pointed  out  to  him,  Froude  still 
left  them  in  his  text.  All  this  Mr.  Paul  admits. 

In  an  equally  vigorous  fifth  chapter,  Mr.  Paul  squires 
Froude  in  his  grand  joust  with  Freeman.  And  Mr.  Paul's 
citations  from  Freeman's  own  copy  of  Froude's  History, 
with  marginal  notes,  are  indeed  amusing:  —  "Beast," 
"vilest  brute,"  "a  lie,"  "may I  live  to  embowel  J.  A.  Froude." 
It  has  already  been  related  that  when  Freeman  sat  down  to 
attack  Froude  in  a  review  article  he  would  have  played  a 
noisy  piece  of  music  which  he  hated,  to  give  him  the  needful 
fit  of  ill-humour.  Mr.  Paul  does  right  in  showing  us  the 
furious  prejudice  which  animated  these  attacks.  But  few 
historians  will  go  with  him  when  he  says  that,  "in  patient 
assuidity  of  research,  Froude  was  immeasurably  Freeman's 
superior."  Mr.  Paul  has  shown  ground  for  hesitating  to 
accept  the  whole  of  Freeman's  criticism.  On  the  other 
hand,  he  has  little  idea  of  the  extent  of  Froude's  blunders. 
They  may  be  "mole-hills,"  as  he  calls  them.  But  when  a 
meadow  ceases  to  be  green,  and  is  turned  brown  with  mole- 
hills in  every  square  yard,  the  pasture  is  sadly  to  seek  for 
the  hungry  cattle. 

If  Mr.  Paul  would  carefully  compare  the  printed  text 
of  any  one  of  Froude's  books  with  the  authority  which  is 
there  cited,  he  would  find  a  mistranslation,  a  misquotation, 
or  a  variation  in  almost  every  sentence.  What  does  he  say 
when  Froude  tells  "an  apocryphal  anecdote,"  and  adds 
"  there  is  no  reason  why  it  should  not  continue  to  be  believed  "  ? 
What  about  his  "apocryphal"  confession  of  Queen  Catherine 
on  her  death-bed  —  which  represents  her  as  doing  exactly 
what  she  did  not  do  ?  What  about  "  the  most  perfect  English 
history  which  is  to  be  found  in  the  historical  plays  of  Shake- 
speare"? Mr.  Froude  was  a  very  great  writer  and  almost  a 
great  dramatist.  But  he,  too,  often  studied  his  original 


SCIENTIFIC  HISTORY  99 

"sources"  in  the  spirit  in  which  Shakespeare  studied  his 
Holinshed.  He  sought  to  draw  out  of  the  dry  bones  of  the 
chronicles  splendid  pictures  of  moving  events,  the  play  of 
great  characters,  and  the  clash  of  contrasted  natures  and 
minds.  C'est  magnifique,  mais  ce  n'est  pas  Vhistoire. 

Unfortunately,  the  habit  of  misquotation,  small  slips, 
inadvertent  "mole-hills,"  form  not  the  serious  part  of  the 
charge  against  Froude  as  an  historian  of  authority.  Even 
"mole-hills"  cause  nasty  falls  when  they  inadvertently  turn 
a  negative  into  an  affirmative.  The  real  defect  of  Froude's 
history  is  that,  as  his  friends  and  apologists  agree,  he  made 
himself  the  enthusiastic  advocate  of  certain  leading  judg- 
ments upon  the  Tudor  Sovereigns,  undertaking  on  crucial 
points  to  reverse  the  current  view  —  and  in  that  task  has 
failed.  He  has  given  us  some  splendid  narratives,  and  many 
powerful  portraits  of  men  and  women.  He  has  done  much 
to  correct  popular  judgments,  and  to  qualify  the  prejudices 
of  partisans  against  whom  he  argues.  But  he  has  quite 
failed  to  satisfy  independent  minds  that  Henry  was  a  wise 
and  benevolent  statesman;  that  the  Reformation  was  the 
beneficent  work  of  high-minded  and  godly  patriots;  that 
Mary  Stuart  was  a  mere  fiend ;  that  Elizabeth  was  a  heartless 
tyrant.  Freeman's  vitriol  has,  perhaps,  rather  obscured  the 
true  case.  As  Mr.  Paul  shows  us,  Freeman  was  always 
violent,  and  often  unjust.  But  Freeman  did  not  touch  the 
serious  charge  —  the  essential  failure  of  Froude  to  reverse 
accepted  conceptions  of  historic  truth. 

What  are  we  to  say  to  Dr.  Sarolea's  ingenious  argument 
that  Froude  was  our  great  "national  historian,"  not  although 
but  because  he  was  a  passionate  advocate  ?  The  Edinburgh 
Professor  tells  us  that  the  historian  cannot  be  artist,  or 
moralist,  or  psychologist  —  unless  he  is  an  enthusiastic  par- 
tisan ;  that  his  text  will  be  colourless,  his  judgments  neutral, 


100  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

and  his  figures  dummies.  This  is  going  very  far  beyond 
Mr.  Paul,  or  any  reasonable  friend  of  literature  in  history. 
It  is  to  confound  the  Judge  with  the  advocate.  The  historian 
ought,  no  doubt,  to  feel  a  steady  flame  of  enthusiasm  for  all 
great  spirits,  for  all  just  causes  —  not  for  one  —  but  for  all. 
His  merit  is  to  be  judicial  —  to  acquit  the  innocent  with 
honour,  to  condemn  the  guilty  without  fear.  But  just  because 
he  sits  in  judgment  on  all  parties  alike,  and  because  he  has  to 
weigh  and  test  every  shred  of  evidence  on  both  sides  equally, 
so  he  prostitutes  his  office,  when  he  shows  favour  towards 
any  single  party,  or  propounds  any  partial  estimate.  Even 
when  Carlyle  restored  Cromwell  to  his  true  place  in  our 
history,  he  seriously  impaired  his  work  by  fanatical  hero- 
worship. 

Hero-worship  and  anathemas  are  alike  false  art  as  well  as 
shallow  policy  in  history  —  where  Te  Deum  and  Commina- 
tion  Services  have  no  place.  The  historian  holds  a  kind  of 
mimic  rehearsal  of  the  Last  Judgment,  only  he  has  no  Re- 
cording Angel  to  tell  him  the  facts  truly.  When  the  ghosts 
and  shadows  of  the  dead  rise  before  his  sight  from  the  past,  he 
has  before  him  whole  generations  at  once.  None  are  wholly 
guilty,  none  are  wholly  blameless.  His  task  is  to  weigh  each 
sinner,  not  as  if  he  were  a  saint,  nor  as  if  he  were  a  devil  — 
but  to  strike  the  true  balance,  neither  devoid  of  human  sym- 
pathy with  those  who  have  borne  much  grief,  nor  sparing  of 
just  indignation  with  those  who  have  lived  to  be  a  curse  to 
their  age.  But  the  essence  of  his  task  is  to  judge  all  equally 
together  —  to  conceive  the  whole  human  panorama  in  its 
entirety  and  its  true  proportions. 

The  supreme  task  of  the  Muse  of  History  —  the  incalcu- 
lable difficulty  —  is  to  present  a  broad  and  glowing  picture 
of  a  past  age  in  its  true  proportions.  Neither  artistic  colour 
nor  microscopic  accuracy  suffice  to  do  this.  Literary  bril- 


SCIENTIFIC  HISTORY  IOI 

liance  is  just  as  inefficient  as  meticulous  research.  Both 
destroy  the  truth  of  proportion  —  literature  by  misleading  us 
with  false  lights,  research  by  overwhelming  its  canvas  with 
trivial  details. 

The  problem  has  never  been  better  stated  than  by  Lucian 
in  his  delightful  essay,  "How  to  Compose  History."  The 
perfect  historian,  he  says,  must  start  with  two  indispensable 
qualifications  —  "the  one  is  political  insight,  the  other  the 
faculty  of  expression."  You  may  acquire  the  gift  of  expres- 
sion, he  says,  by  practice  and  study.  But  political  insight 
is  a  rare  gift  of  nature.  It  is  genius  for  affairs.  The  most 
laborious  student  of  documents  without  this  gift  is  a  tedious 
pedant.  The  most  brilliant  advocacy,  apart  from  political 
insight,  is  merely  a  means  of  perverting  the  truth.  It  is  too 
little  understood  that  no  amount  of  grinding  old  parchments, 
collating  manuscripts,  and  piling  up  facts,  will  outweigh 
political  flair,  the  power  of  judging  men  and  events  with 
insight. 

The  great  historian  is  really  an  unofficial  statesman.  This 
insight  of  his  can  hardly  be  attained  except  by  those  who  have 
been  conversant  with  affairs,  in  close  touch  with  those 
who  rule  or  who  advise  rulers.  All  great  historians  have 
been  statesmen,  or  in  intimate  relations  with  statesmen, 
in  great  times.  Thucydides,  Polybius,  Caesar,  Tacitus, 
De  Comines,  Machiavelli,  Clarendon,  Gibbon,  Macaulay, 
Guizot,  Thiers  —  all  passed  large  parts  of  their  lives  in 
public  life. 

Hear  Lucian's  test  of  the  great  historian.  Let  him  be 
fearless,  incorruptible,  independent,  a  believer  in  frankness 
and  veracity ;  one  who  will  yield  nothing  to  his  likes  or  dis- 
likes; nor  spare  any  one  through  pity  and  good  nature; 
an  impartial  judge,  kind  to  all,  but  too  kind  to  none;  not 
of  one  nation,  but  a  citizen  of  the  world,  owning  no  hero, 


102  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

no  king  of  men;  indifferent  to  what  the  public  thinks  or 
likes;  bent  to  set  down  truly  things  which  befell  in  fact. 
Thucydides  is  the  eternal  model,  who  wrote,  as  he  says,  for 
all  time ;  not  Herodotus,  who  enchanted  the  Greeks  at  their 
Festivals  by  eulogies  on  their  noble  selves. 


THE   NEW   MOTLEY1 

1896 

MESSRS.  Bell  and  Sons  are  still  energetically  pursuing  their 
task  of  adding  to  and  improving  the  famous  series  of  Bohn's 
Libraries,  which  Thomas  Carlyle  pronounced  to  be  "the 
usefulest  thing  I  know."  As  copyrights  expire,  Messrs. 
Bell  are  constantly  adding  to  the  Libraries,  in  the  new  and 
certainly  pleasanter  form,  reprints  of  standard  works  which 
"no  gentleman's  library  should  be  without."  Amongst  the 
latest  additions  is  a  reprint  of  Motley's  Dutch  Republic,  a 
book  of  which  it  may  be  said  that  "no  man's  reading  should 
be  without."  And  to  this  edition  they  have  added  a  bio- 
graphical introduction  by  his  countryman  and  friend,  Mr. 
Moncure  D.  Con  way,  and  a  good  reproduction  of  the  portrait 
of  Motley  after  the  picture  by  Bischop,  now  the  property  of 
the  Queen  of  the  Netherlands  at  The  Hague. 

To  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men  and  women  who 
have  felt  the  thrill  of  a  first  reading  of  The  Rise  of  the  Dutch 
Republic,  and  to  those  who  rejoiced  that  the  great  Republic 
of  the  West  should  be  officially  represented  in  England  by  a 
typical  man  of  letters  of  America,  it  will  be  a  pleasure  to  see 
the  singularly  handsome,  intellectual,  and  refined  face  of  the 
historian  as  given  in  this  volume.  It  is  a  face  little  familiar 
to  the  general  reader;  and,  as  Motley  has  now  been  dead 

1  The  Rise  of  the  Dutch  Republic.  By  John  Lothrop  Motley.  A  new 
Edition  in  three  volumes,  with  a  Biographical  Introduction  by  Moncure  D. 
Conway.  Bohn's  Standard  Library. 

103 


104  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

for  nearly  twenty  years,  it  can  be  remembered  in  life  by  only 
a  limited  part  of  modern  society.  To  those  who  take  up  this 
volume,  with  its  generous  notice  of  the  author  by  his  friend 
Moncure  Conway,  it  is  a  welcome  frontispiece  wherein  we  can 
see  with  our  eyes  the  grand  brow,  the  delicate  features,  and 
the  air  of  power  and  resolution  in  the  historian's  whole  aspect. 

John  Lothrop  Motley  was  born  in  Boston,  Mass.,  in  1814, 
of  an  old  New  England  Puritan  family,  that  traced  descent 
to  emigrants  for  conscience'  sake,  on  the  one  side  from  the 
North  of  Ireland,  on  the  other  side  from  the  English  Midlands. 
Mr.  Moncure  Conway,  naturally  and  very  rightly,  dwells 
on  the  literary  life  of  the  historian.  Motley  was  also  diplo- 
matist, politician,  and  publicist,  and  for  seven  years  repre- 
sented his  country  as  Minister  in  Austria  and  in  England.  But 
in  this  volume  Mr.  Conway  gives  us  almost  exclusively  a 
picture  of  the  historian;  and  this  was  the  only  really  im- 
portant side  of  Motley's  whole  career.  It  is  the  life  of  an 
ardent  man  of  letters,  dominated  by  a  high  ideal  of  a  great 
historical  purpose.  This  single  purpose  absorbed  his  whole 
life  for  more  than  thirty  years,  until  his  death  in  May  1877. 
His  design  was  to  describe  from  contemporary  documents 
the  great  struggle  for  freedom  of  belief  which  created  a  power- 
ful and  independent  republic  in  the  Netherlands;  and  no 
man  ever  devoted  his  life  to  study  with  more  industry  and 
patience. 

Motley,  Mr.  Conway  tells  us,  belonged  to  that  inner  circle 
of  culture  in  New  England  which  produced  Emerson,  Lowell, 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  Wendell  Phillips,  Longfellow,  and 
so  many  others.  He  spent  four  years  at  Harvard  College, 
1827-31,  and  then  some  four  years  in  Germany  and  other 
parts  of  Europe.  At  Gottingen  he  met  Prince  Bismarck, 
and  they  became  fellow-students  at  Berlin,  intimate  friends 
and  fellow-lodgers,  sharing  their  meals  and  exercise.  This 


THE  NEW  MOTLEY  105 

X 

intimacy  with  the  great  statesman  lasted  throughout  Motley's 
life,  and  must  have  insensibly  reacted  on  his  knowledge 
of  men  and  affairs.  Motley's  early  studies  were  somewhat 
desultory,  self-directed,  and  wholly  without  academic  or 
early  success.  Like  Gibbon,  he  was  "sent  down"  by  his 
college.  Indeed,  it  is  worth  noting  how  very  seldom  eminent 
writers  of  history  have  been  distinguished  by  youthful 
or  scholastic  triumphs.  There  seems  to  be  some  instinctive 
opposition  between  them  and  their  official  teachers.  Re- 
turning to  his  native  country  in  1835  — he  was  then  in  his 
twenty-second  year  —  Motley  devoted  himself  to  literature 

—  he  wrote  romances,  poems,  plays,  sketches,  essays,  articles 

—  but  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  first  ten  years  of  his 
literary  activity  were  attended  by  no  success,  and,  indeed, 
produced  little  to  deserve  it. 

But  the  course  of  these  pieces,  which  turned  so  largely 
on  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  and  their  early  history,  directed  Mot- 
ley, about  the  age  of  thirty-three,  to  the  great  struggle  of 
the  Dutch  for  freedom  in  religion  and  in  government. 
Motley's  own  account  of  the  way  in  which  the  grand  sub- 
ject took  possession  of  his  soul  may  be  set  beside  Gibbon's 
famous  anecdote  of  the  origin  of  the  Decline  and  Fall  in  the 
Church  of  the  Franciscans  on  the  Capitol.  "I  have  not 
first,"  said  Motley,  "made  up  my  mind  to  write  a  history, 
and  then  cast  about  to  take  up  a  subject:  my  subject  had 
taken  me  up,  drawn  me  on,  and  absorbed  me  into  itself."  He 
was  warmly  encouraged  by  Prescott,  with  whose  Philip  the 
Second  he  had  feared  to  come  into  unfriendly  competition  or 
damaging  comparison;  and  after  some  ten  years  of  labour 
The  Rise  of  the  Dutch  Republic  appeared.  He  had  been  in- 
cessantly occupied  over  documents  and  archives  in  Holland, 
Belgium,  and  Germany.  "Whatever  may  be  the  result  of 
my  labours,"  he  writes  to  Dr.  Holmes  in  1853,  "nobody  can 


106  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

say  that  I  have  not  worked  hard  like  a  brute  beast;  but  I 
do  not  care  for  the  result.  The  labour  is  itself  its  own  reward, 
and  all  I  want.  I  go  day  after  day  to  the  archives  here  (in 
Brussels),  as  I  went  all  summer  at  The  Hague,  studying  the 
old  letters  and  documents  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Here  I 
remain  among  my  fellow-worms,  feeding  on  those  musty 
mulberry  leaves  of  which  we  are  afterwards  to  spin  our 
silk.  .  .  .  The  dead  men  of  the  place  are  my  intimate 
friends.  I  am  at  home  in  my  cemetery.  With  the  fellows 
of  the  sixteenth  century  I  am  on  the  most  familiar  terms. 
Any  ghost  that  ever  flits  by  night  across  the  moonlit  square 
is  at  once  hailed  by  me  as  a  man  and  a  brother.  I  call  him 
by  his  Christian  name  at  once."  It  is  a  typical  picture  of 
original  research  — 

.  .  .  expertus  credes  quam  gravis  iste  labor ! 

Mr.  Conway  gives  us  an  interesting  study  of  the  long  labours 
which  produced  the  work,  the  obstacles  that  delayed  its 
publication,  and  the  wearisome  search  for  a  publisher.  It 
is  one  of  the  curiosities  of  literature  that  one  firm  after  another 
rejected  the  book,  which  at  last  was  accepted  by  John  Chap- 
man at  the  author's  expense  and  risk.  Motley  thought  it 
hardly  worth  while  to  incur  the  expense  of  travelling  from 
Vevey  to  England  "to  secure  a  copyright  which  I  could  not 
sell  for  ;£ioo."  It  was  deposited  in  the  British  Museum, 
Oct.  20,  1855 ;  but  six  months  later  Motley  writes  from  Italy 
that  he  supposes  very  few  copies  have  been  sold.  His  pub- 
lisher failed  soon  after,  and  the  receipts  do  not  seem  to  have 
been  large.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  "  17,000  copies  were  sold  in 
England  during  the  first  year  of  publication."  Such  are  the 
uncertainties  of  authorship  and  the  mysterious  ways  of  the 
trade. 

This  is  not  the  place  for  any  .new  estimate  of  so  well- 


THE  NEW  MOTLEY  107 

known  a  work  as  Motley's  Dutch  Republic,  which  has  long 
passed  into  the  class  of  standard  histories,  such  as  are  the 
handbooks  of  all  historical  study.  The  latest  student  in  that 
field,  Ruth  Putnam,  in  her  William  the  Silent  (two  vols., 
New  York,  1895)  very  truly  describes  the  care  with  which 
Motley  has  been  used  by  all  subsequent  historians  in  Europe, 
and  her  own  admiration  "for  the  untiring  industry  of  his 
laborious  researches,  and  for  the  accuracy  and  skill  of  his 
adaptations  from  the  enormous  mass  of  matter  that  he  ex- 
amined." The  forty  years  that  have  passed  have  seen  the 
publication  and  careful  editing  of  many  of  those  contemporary 
records  which  Motley  had  to  study  in  manuscript.  The 
Memoirs  of  Pontus  Payen,  Renon  de  France,  the  corre- 
spondence of  Cardinal  Granvelle,  the  publications  of  Gachard 
and  Kervyn  de  Lettenhove,  have  now  enabled  us  to  follow  up 
this  period,  without  our  personally  "feeding  on  the  mulberry 
leaves"  in  the  archives  of  Brussels  and  The  Hague.  But 
although  a  vast  literature  has  grown  up  round  the  great  sub- 
ject, it  can  hardly  be  said  that  Motley  has  been  corrected  on 
very  material  points,  much  less  has  he  been  superseded. 

Motley's  deficiencies,  such  as  they  are,  certainly  do  not  lie 
in  any  want  of  industry,  thoroughness,  or  accuracy.  All 
of  these  he  had  in  a  supreme  degree.  But  we  can  now  see 
that  he  had  a  somewhat  superabundant  enthusiasm  for  his 
favourite  heroes  and  people,  and  a  somewhat  deficient  strength 
of  philosophic  insight  and  calm.  He  can  hardly  be  ranked 
with  the  philosophic  historians  at  all ;  and  no  one  has  claimed 
for  him  the  magnificent  power  of  Gibbon  to  marshal  in  close 
array  an  enormous  host  of  various  incidents  and  events. 
Motley's  eloquence  is  not  always  as  chaste  and  simple  as  is 
required  by  our  modern  taste;  and,  though  he  is  almost 
never  tedious,  he  has  given  disproportionate  bulk  to  the  story 
of  a  single  generation  in  so  small  a  comer  of  Europe. 


io8  MEMORIES  AND  THOUGHTS 

More  serious  defects  are  these.  He  has  treated  the  great 
William  of  Orange  too  much  as  a  saint  and  martyr,  and  too 
little  as  a  man  of  his  age.  Hero,  statesman,  mighty  chief, 
and  founder,  as  was  William  of  Nassau,  he  was  a  man  who 
was  always  growing ;  a  man  who  used  all  the  resources  famil- 
iar to  his  time;  and,  like  all  consummate  opportunists,  a 
man  who  was  perpetually  foiling  his  opponents  by  superior 
craft  and  alarming  his  colleagues  by  a  change  of  front.  He 
professed  in  turn  three  different  creeds,  and  was  a  member 
of  three  successive  Churches,  without  any  profound  convic- 
tion of  the  minor  professions  or  practices  of  any  one  of  the 
three.  To  Motley  he  is  always  too  much  the  spotless  ideal 
and  religious  enthusiast.  Nor  does  Motley  adequately  estimate 
the  profound  roots  of  the  Catholic  reaction  in  Belgium,  or 
enable  us  to  understand  why,  and  in  so  short  a  time  after  the 
rule  of  Alva,  the  Belgian  provinces  relapsed  to  the  old  faith. 
We  need  something  more  than  a  partisan  of  Puritan  heroism 
to  explain  the  revival  of  Catholicism.  I  was  a  short  time  ago 
at  High  Mass  on  Sunday  morning  in  the  Cathedral  of  Ant- 
werp. As  I  recalled  the  tremendous  scene  of  iconoclasm 
enacted  in  that  very  church  330  years  ago,  so  splendidly 
described  by  Motley,  and  then  turned  to  the  gorgeous  ritual, 
the  noble  music,  the  impassioned  sermon,  and  the  vast 
throng  of  worshippers,  who  hour  after  hour  crowded  round 
the  many  chapels  and  altars,  knelt  before  the  images,  gazed 
at  the  glorious  pictures,  and  all  the  statues,  decorations,  and 
symbols  of  the  Catholic  faith  —  I  asked  myself  if  the  New 
England  historian  had  fully  grasped  those  vast  and  abiding 
forces  of  which  Philip  and  Alva  were  the  satanic  incarnation. 

Yet  let  us  not  call  Motley  a  New  England  historian,  for 
he  belongs  to  the  Old  as  much  as  to  the  New  England.  The 
best  years  of  his  life  were  passed  in  Europe ;  his  last  home  was 
hi  England ;  he  died  in  England ;  he  and  his  wife  are  buried 


THE  NEW  MOTLEY  109 

in  England ;  he  married  his  daughters  in  England,  and  one  of 
them,  as  all  the  world  knows,  is  the  wife  of  the  leader  of  Her 
Majesty's  Opposition.  Old  England  divides  the  fame  of 
Motley  with  New  England,  and  Englishmen  will  thank  his 
American  fellow-citizen  for  giving  us  this  timely  account  of 
one  who  will  long  live  amongst  the  classics  of  the  English 
tongue. 


MAINE'S  "ANCIENT  LAW"  REVISED 

1906 

FORTY-FIVE  years  after  its  first  publication,  and  three 
years  after  the  expiry  of  the  original  copyright,  the  famous 
book  which  founded  in  England  the  study  of  Comparative 
Jurisprudence  is  about  to  start  on  a  new  life.  Ancient  Law 
was  published  in  1861,  and  has  long  grown  to  be  a  classical 
text.  But  as  all  classical  texts,  especially  in  matters  of  law 
and  of  historical  research,  soon  become  more  or  less  anti- 
quated by  discoveries  which  they  themselves  have  stimulated 
and  partly  suggested,  so  Ancient  Law  was  of  late  years  tend- 
ing to  be  thought  superseded  by  later  learning,  or  disproved 
by  more  recent  theories.  Nothing  of  the  kind  was  true. 
But  the  book  certainly  had  to  be  brought  up  to  date,  and  in 
sundry  points  it  had  to  be  supplemented,  explained,  corrected, 
and  justified.  This  has  been  thoroughly  well  done  by  the 
man  of  all  others  most  qualified  for  such  a  task.  Sir  Frederick 
Pollock,  by  his  masterly  " Introduction"  and  "  Notes," 
appended  to  each  of  Maine's  ten  chapters,  gives  the  student 
all  the  explanations  and  corrections  he  needs,  and  in  fact 
launches  Maine's  first  and  typical  work  upon  a  new  career 
for  the  students  of  Comparative  Jurisprudence  at  home  and 
abroad. 

I  am  old  enough  not  only  to  remember  the  publication  of  the 
book  in  1861,  but  to  have  attended  the  course  of  lectures  of 
which  the  book  consists;  and  I  was  myself  the  pupil  of  Sir 
Henry  Maine  in  Lincoln's  Inn  in  1857.  On  the  publication 

1 10 


MAINE'S   "ANCIENT  LAW"    REVISED  III 

of  the  volume  with  which  I  was  so  familiar,  and  which  I  had 
seen  in  proof-sheets,  I  wrote  in  the  Westminster  Review  of 
1 86 1  one  of  the  earliest  tributes  to  the  importance  of  the  work, 
a  paper  which  I  know  satisfied  the  author  himself.  I  remained 
in  close  friendship  with  Sir  Henry  till  his  too  early  death  in 
1888;  and  I  am  still,  with  Sir  Frederick  Pollock,  one  of  his 
executors  and  trustees.  It  is  needless  now  to  expatiate  on 
the  originality  and  value  of  Ancient  Law,  but  I  may  give 
from  my  own  memory  some  account  of  the  part  it  has  played 
in  the  development  of  legal  science. 

When  Maine  first  began  to  lecture  at  the  Temple  in  1852, 
as  Professor  to  the  Inns  of  Court  of  Roman  Law  and  Juris- 
prudence, the  British  ignorance  of  Roman  Law  and  at  any 
rate  of  Comparative  Jurisprudence  was  really  a  unique 
phenomenon.  To  the  successful  case  lawyer  a  "jurist" 
was  a  term  of  reproach,  meaning  an  ignorant  impostor.  And 
one  of  the  greatest  masters  of  Real  Property  learning  in 
Lincoln's  Inn  would  warn  his  pupils  "against  that  beastly 
book  —  Justinian,"  by  which  he  was  believed  to  mean  the 
Institutes,  for  he  had  never  heard  of  Digest,  Code,  or  Novels. 
The  days  of  Selden  and  Locke  were  long  past,  and  even  the 
time  when  English  lawyers  sometimes  followed  a  course  of 
study  at  Leyden.  Blackstone,  perhaps,  would  be  plucked 
to-day  at  Oxford  for  ignorance  of  the  most  familiar  rules  in 
the  Institutes.  As  to  anything  like  the  history  of  legal  ideas, 
it  was  hardly  thought  worthy  of  notice.  Bentham  and 
Austin  had  brought  powers  of  rare  acuteness  to  the  analysis 
of  law ;  but  neither  of  them  had  any  real  historical  training, 
nor,  indeed,  any  historical  instincts.  And  in  dealing  with 
the  dominant  conceptions  of  sociology  —  all  ex  hypothesi 
subject  to  the  law  of  evolution  —  the  acutest  logic  is  a  poor 
substitute  for  the  study  of  the  facts  of  progressive  develop- 
ment. 


112  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

It  is  quite  a  commonplace  with  jurists  that  Maine's  Ancient 
Law  opened  a  new  era.  In  the  half-century  since  Maine 
began  to  lecture,  the  systematic  study  of  the  "Corpus  Juris" 
has  taken  its  place  in  the  Inns  of  Court,  in  the  Universities 
of  Oxford,  Cambridge,  and  London.  Holland,  Poste,  Roby, 
Hunter,  Bryce,  Muirhead,  Clark,  Goudy,  Moyle,  Greenidge 
have  worked  systematically  on  this  science;  whilst  the  best 
works  of  German  and  French  Civilians  are  ordinary  text- 
books with  our  students.  In  the  way  of  the  history  of  legal 
and  social  conceptions  such  English  writers  as  Tylor,  Lub- 
bock,  M'Lennan,  Spencer,  Lang,  Pollock,  Maitland,  have 
removed  from  English  letters  the  opprobrium  of  treating 
English  law  as  something  as  sacred  and  as  mysterious  in 
origin  as  the  law  of  Moses.  The  movement  itself  was  part 
of  the  great  tidal  wave  of  Evolution  which  swept  over  Eng- 
lish thought  about  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  — 
of  which  Darwin  and  Spencer  were  the  scientific  and  philo- 
sophical protagonists  —  which  produced  the  school  of  histori- 
cal research  of  Stubbs,  Freeman,  and  Gardiner,  the  logical 
school  of  Mill  and  Morley,  the  archaeological  school  of  Frazer 
and  Westermarck.  It  would  be  extravagant  to  pretend  that 
Maine  founded  these  movements  —  but  he  touched  on  them 
all;  and  he  was  certainly  the  first  to  give  them  brilliant 
literary  form. 

In  forty-five  years,  during  which  some  of  the  acutest  minds 
and  some  of  the  most  profound  scholars  in  Europe  have  made 
a  vast  body  of  research  in  the  origins  of  human  society  and 
the  evolution  of  social  institutions,  it  was,  of  course,  inevi- 
table but  that  new  lights  should  be  thrown  on  many  of  the 
problems  discussed  in  Ancient  Law,  and  some  of  its  conclu- 
sions be  qualified  and  corrected.  In  this  age,  which  has  a 
superstitious  respect  for  the  "latest"  telegram  and  the 
"newest"  book,  students  were  getting  uneasy  that  Maine 


MAINE'S   "ANCIENT  LAW"    REVISED  113 

did  not  know  everything  contained  in  the  last  monograph 
issued  in  Germany,  Russia,  France,  India,  or  the  Colonies, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  indefatigable  output  from  American 
Universities.  They  can  now  trust  Sir  Frederick  Pollock, 
who  knows  all  these,  and  is  in  touch  with  the  best  scholarship 
of  all  these  countries,  to  point  out  where  Maine's  language 
has  to  be  supplemented,  qualified,  and  revised.  There  are 
eighteen  "Notes"  appended  to  the  ten  chapters,  which,  with 
the  "Introduction,"  make  up  about  one-third  of  the  volume 
as  new  matter.  Altogether,  Ancient  Law  may  now  be  re- 
garded as  much  a  new  work  as  if  it  had  been  recently  com- 
piled. There  has  been,  of  course,  no  attempt  to  interpolate 
Maine's  text  or  to  make  such  a  ridiculous  hash  as  the  "modern- 
ised" Blackstones  present,  nor  is  there  any  pretension  in  the 
"Notes"  to  imitate  Maine's  brilliant  power  of  casting  his 
apothegms  into  memorable  phrases.  But  all  debatable 
points  have  been  discussed  with  a  learning  at  least  as  wide  as 
Maine's,  and  with  a  bibliography  of  the  subject  far  more 
complete  than  any  open  to  the  author  a  generation  ago. 

The  main  points  now  noted  are  these.  Maine's  incisive 
language  must  not  be  taken  in  too  absolute  a  way.  He  some- 
what overrated  the  antiquity  of  Roman  Law,  and  gave  a 
rather  too  systematic  shape  to  the  XII.  Tables.  And  we 
must  guard  against  the  Continental  use  of  such  terms  as 
"written  law,"  and  remember  that  English  lawyers  use  it  in 
a  different  sense.  The  most  important  corrections  needed 
are  in  Maine's  third  and  fourth  chapters  on  the  "Law  of 
Nature,"  where  he  seems  to  ignore  the  extent  to  which  the 
Civil  Law  continued  to  influence  mediaeval  jurists  and  church- 
men. Nor  is  he  right  in  his  account  of  the  origin  of  what  we 
call  the  "Law  of  Nations."  Maine  perhaps  placed  Montes- 
quieu's constructive  work  higher  than  modern  historians 
and  sociology  would  do.  Nor  need  we  be  disturbed  by  the 


114  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

ebb  and  flow  of  the  eternal  battle  waged  between  enthusiasts 
for  the  Patriarchal  and  the  Matriarchal  theories,  and  around 
the  prostrate  forms  of  the  archaic  brides  as  to  "Early  Forms 
of  Marriage."  Victory  is  not  yet  declared  —  if  it  ever  will 
be.  Maine's  dictum  as  to  "Status"  and  "Contract"  may 
require  limitation  in  terms,  but  in  substance  it  is  as  sound  as 
it  is  luminous.  On  the  whole,  recent  research  rather  tends 
to  confirm  Maine's  judgments,  if  his  words  are  not  pressed 
too  absolutely.  And  of  all  writers  on  these  obscure  topics 
he  clothes  them  in  the  most  brilliant  literary  form. 


IMPERIAL  MANNERS 

1906 

HISTORY  does  not  repeat  itself  in  periodic  cycles,  as  Vico 
and  the  older  philosophy  of  history  taught,  but  it  is  curious 
how  subtly  the  dominant  ideals  of  an  age  are  repeated  in  the 
current  ways  and  habits  of  men.  The  Disraelite  and  Cecilite 
age  of  purple  Imperialism,  which  has  happily  ended  in  dust 
and  ashes,  has  given  us  some  gaudy  revivals  of  Imperial 
Rome  in  the  first  century  after  Christ. 

Nero  is  now  the  fashion.  The  most  brilliant  (and,  indeed, 
the  most  erudite)  spectacle  ever  presented  to  a  London 
audience  takes  us  to  the  centre  of  the  Neronian  world.  The 
Universities  exhaust  their  learning  in  vivid  pictures  of  Im- 
perial Society.  The  elaborate  work  of  Professor  Dill  of 
Belfast  on  Roman  Society  from  Nero  to  M.  Aurelius  was 
followed  by  the  lectures  of  Dr.  Bigg,  Canon  of  Christ  Church 
and  Professor  of  Ecclesiastical  History  at  Oxford.  Both 
books  analyse  the  influence  of  the  new  thought  and  religion 
of  the  first  century  on  habits  and  manners.  Oxford  has 
just  given  us  an  admirable  translation  of  Lucian  —  the 
Voltaire,  the  Swift,  the  Le  Sage  of  antiquity. 

And  on  the  top  of  the  wave  of  Neronian  fashions  there 
come  two  editions  and  translations  of  Petronius,  Nero's 
"arbiter  of  elegance,"  his  Beau  Brummel,  and  victim. 
"  Trimalchio's  Supper- Party,"  with  its  Rabelaisian  buffoonery, 
its  Swiftian  grossness,  its  Thackerayan  Book  of  Snobs,  has 

"5 


Il6  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

a  queer  analogy  to  modern  London  and  Monte  Carlo.  How 
near  is  Petronian  Rome  to  the  "smart"  London  of  to-day! 

Trimalchio  to-day  is  a  self-made  millionaire,  the  son  not  of 
a  slave,  but  of  an  honest  workman.  He  began  life,  not  as  an 
aspiring  freed-man,  but  as  an  office  boy.  He  brags  of  his 
rough  beginnings  and  of  his  lavish  gifts  to  public  charities 
and  deserving  friends.  His  mansion  in  Hyde  Park  or  Bel- 
gravia  is  stored  with  curios  which  Bond  Street  dealers  assure 
him  to  be  genuine  and  rare.  He  holds  tight  by  the  Imperial 
cause,  and  parades  his  zeal  for  Empire  with  banquets,  illumi- 
nations, and  royal  donations.  When  he  invites  you  to  sup, 
he  tells  you  there  will  be  wild  boar's  head  from  the  Campagna, 
cold  pheasant  in  August,  or  mangostines  in  ice  from  Java. 
He  talks  grandly  about  Nero  himself,  and  is  intriguing  to  get 
His  Majesty  to  try  his  preserves. 

The  Trimalchio  of  Petronius  boldly  introduced  to  the 
supper-table  his  head-huntsman  and  his  Laconian  hounds. 
We  do  not  have  gamekeepers  and  whips  in  Park  Lane.  But 
our  own  Trimalchios  will  show  you  sport  in  their  own  county, 
and  they  can  never  cease  to  talk  of  it. 

Petronius  makes  his  Trimalchio  offer  his  guests  enter- 
tainments which  are  no  longer  exactly  in  vogue.  The 
grossness  of  speech  and  act,  the  tomfoolery,  the  insolence  of 
the  Neronian  nouveau  riche  are  no  longer  tolerated.  And 
perhaps  Petronius,  like  Swift,  overdoes  the  caricature.  But 
in  substance  how  like  they  are  ! 

The  vulgarity  of  the  adventurer  is  eternal.  The  low-bred 
upstart  seeks,  by  sheer  weight  of  gold,  to  force  himself  into 
the  Imperial  circles,  and,  indeed,  sometimes  succeeds  in  arriv- 
ing there.  He  is  surrounded  by  cosmopolitan  parasites, 
who  own  no  common  race,  or  tongue,  religion,  or  country. 
The  "Kaffir  Circus"  are  the  counterpart  of  Trimalchio's 
"  Graeculi  esurientes."  Trimalchio  plays  at  dice  over  supper. 


IMPERIAL  MANNERS  1 17 

Belgravia  plays  bridge.  The  table  is  loaded  with  eccentric 
viands,  with  bedizened  dishes  made  to  imitate  Dresden  por- 
celain or  Chinese  monsters.  Trimalchio's  wife,  Fortunata, 
was  a  harridan,  as  low-born  as  himself,  covered  with  big 
jewels,  and  even  more  extravagant  than  her  lord.  The 
profusion  of  exotic  plants  and  flowers  was  as  eagerly  sought 
at  Rome  as  it  is  in  London  or  Paris.  There  as  here,  then  as 
now,  in  the  vulgarian's  establishment  everything  was  "de 
trap  —  trap  de  choses  —  outre."  Objects  of  art,  viands, 
entertainments,  were  bought,  not  because  they  were  good, 
but  because  they  were  difficult  to  buy.  Things  were  valued, 
not  for  what  they  were,  but  for  what  they  cost.  Art,  society, 
manners,  literature  were  coloured  with  the  same  purple 
glare. 

It  should  make  us  shudder  to  note  the  sinister  analogies 
of  Imperial  Rome  and  Imperial  Britain.  There  is  the  same 
wantonness  in  extravagance,  the  pretence  of  art,  refinement, 
and  culture,  with  the  real  debasement  of  all  of  them  by 
vanity  and  low  tastes.  Our  English  tongue  gets  vulgarised 
by  foreign  slang.  As  Roman  society  caught  up  the  vernacular 
of  slaves,  British  conversation  gets  infiltrated  with  coster- 
mongers'  cant  phrases  learned  in  music-hall  songs.  If 
Cicero  would  gasp  at  Petronius's  solecisms,  Addison  would 
shrink  from  the  "short  story"  in  slum  idiom  which  adorns 
half  our  magazines  and  newspapers. 

A  Neronian  banquet,  such  as  Mr.  Tree  provides  with  such 
magnificence  and  such  learning,  is  hardly  a  caricature  of  some 
New  York  festival  of  flowers,  jewels,  delicacies,  and  enter- 
tainments. We  imitate  New  York  at  a  distance.  Petronius 
would  smile  with  pity  at  the  poverty  of  the  wildest  debauch 
Park  Lane  ever  imagined.  But  we  shall  come  to  it  in 
time. 

The    Imperial    "  swelled-head "    which    made     Caligula, 


Il8  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

Nero,  and  Domitian  crazy,  ends  in  a  ghastly  ruin.  The 
Neronian  age  was  a  resplendent  and  resounding  orgy.  But 
underneath  the  orgy  there  was  growing  up  a  new  society,  a 
new  faith,  a  nobler  race,  a  purer  life.  The  first  century 
showed  the  old  world  at  its  worst.  But  it  was  the  cradle  of 
the  new  world  which  was  destined  to  sweep  away  the  old. 


BENJAMIN    FRANKLIN 

1906 

IN  these  days  of  centenaries  hardly  enough  has  been  made 
of  the  memory  of  Franklin,  who  was  born  in  1706,  and  died 
at  the  ripe  age  of  eighty-four,  after  one  of  the  most  extraordi- 
nary careers  in  modern  history.  He  was  at  once  one  of  the 
pioneers  of  scientific  discovery  and  one  of  the  founders  of 
the  great  Republic  of  the  West.  The  arch  rebel  of  King 
George  III.  was  the  idol  of  the  Court  of  Versailles.  Saturated 
with  true  literature  and  absorbed  in  physical  science,  he  was 
one  of  the  wisest  statesmen,  and  also  one  of  the  most  creative 
revolutionists,  even  of  the  eighteenth  century,  rich  in  subtle 
statecraft  and  organic  revolution.  The  fifteenth  child  of  a 
humble  family  of  New  England,  Benjamin  was  born  and 
reared  in  poverty,  and  began  a  stern  life  of  toil  as  a  boy  in  a 
printer's  workshop.  There,  and  in  England,  he  managed 
to  give  himself  a  sound  and  varied  knowledge  of  books, 
nature,  and  men.  Returning  to  America,  he  set  up  in  business 
as  printer,  bookseller,  publisher,  and  editor,  and  in  each  oc- 
cupation that  he  undertook  he  won  wealth,  friends,  influence, 
and  fame.  By  the  time  he  had  reached  the  middle  of  his 
life  this  home-spun  printer  had  become  the  most  eminent 
citizen  of  his  own  State,  and  also  a  leader  of  science  renowned 
all  over  Europe.  His  "immortal  discovery,"  as  a  philosopher 
has  called  it,  by  which  he  founded  the  modern  science  of 
electricity,  placed  him  on  such  an  eminence  as  was  afterwards 
obtained  by  the  founder  of  Evolution.  Franklin  was  acknow- 

119 


120  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

ledged  in  England  and  in  France  as  one  of  the  great  lights 
of  modern  science. 

This  typical  American  patriot  passed  nearly  half  his  life 
in  Europe,  a  large  part  of  it  in  England,  and  was  regarded 
as  a  great  discoverer,  as  a  brilliant  man  of  the  world,  and 
also  as  the  Ambassador  of  a  new  nation.  In  the  literary 
world  he  was  the  peer  of  Johnson,  Burke,  Voltaire,  and 
Turgot;  in  the  social  world  he  was  the  friend  of  statesmen, 
courtiers,  and  princes,  both  at  St.  James's  and  at  Versailles. 
The  triumph  of  his  political  life  was  the  French  alliance, 
which  at  last  enabled  the  United  States  to  defeat  the.  King 
and  to  constitute  themselves  a  nation.  Returning  to  the 
Republic  he  had  so  largely  assisted  to  create,  he  became, 
with  Washington,  the  organiser  of  its  institutions.  In  the 
later  years  of  his  long  life,  with  wealth,  influence,  and  honours 
growing  up  spontaneously  around  him,  he  devoted  his  practi- 
cal genius  to  a  series  of  foundations,  academic,  scientific, 
philanthropic,  whilst  dispersing  his  own  fortune  in  public 
and  private  benevolence. 

From  boyhood  to  old  age  Franklin  remained  the  same  stout 
and  simple  citizen;  gracious,  social,  cool-headed,  clear- 
sighted, fearless,  wise.  The  Greeks  had  an  admirable 
phrase  to  describe  such  a  character  of  complete  virtue  and 
cyclopaedic  capacity.  He  was  —  "a  man  four-square  on 
all  sides,  himself  without  defect,"  or,  as  our  poet  puts  it, 
"who  stood  four-square  to  all  the  winds  that  blow."  Even 
better  than  to  Wellington  may  we  attribute  to  Franklin  the 
famous  lines : 

Rich  in  saving  common-sense  .  .  . 
In  his  simplicity  sublime. 

Franklin  was,  indeed,  one  of  the  most  complete  intelli- 
gences and  one  of  the  most  all-round  personalities  of  modern 
history.  It  was  a  character  which  the  eighteenth  century 


BENJAMIN    FRANKLIN  121 

specially  produced,  as  in  such  men  as  Priestley  and  Turgot, 
Condorcet  and  Burke.  But  Franklin  was  far  more  success- 
ful in  everything  he  touched  than  any  of  these  men,  happier 
in  his  conditions  than  any,  with  a  far  keener  genius  for  prac- 
tical affairs,  for  obtaining  permanent  results  out  of  intricate 
entanglement.  Plunged  as  he  was  from  birth  to  old  age  in 
circumstances  apparently  contradictory  and  hopeless  —  poor, 
untaught,  the  official  agent  of  an  insurgent  race  accredited  to 
an  obstinate  tyrant  —  a  man  of  science  harassed  with  daily 
distractions  and  business  troubles,  he  remained  the  same 
imperturbable,  successful,  happy  conqueror  over  all  obstacles. 
And  one  of  the  paradoxes  of  his  career  is  this.  The  self- 
taught  printer's  boy,  fighting  his  way  in  trade,  spending  tune 
and  money  in  physical  experiments  and  practical  adventures, 
incessantly  travelling  from  America  to  Europe,  and  immersed 
in  society,  in  diplomacy,  and  in  scientific  meetings,  contrived 
to  acquire  a  literary  gift  of  singular  effectiveness.  He  wrote 
on  all  kinds  of  subjects  —  his  memoirs,  essays,  letters  fill 
ten  stout  volumes.  Their  form  is  quite  unlike  the  brilliant 
and  elaborate  style  of  contemporary  Englishmen.  Johnson, 
Burke,  and  Gibbon  would  regard  it  as  trivial.  Goldsmith, 
Hume,  Cowper,  and  Gray  would  hardly  call  it  "elegant." 
But  it  has  some  of  the  qualities  of  Swift;  homely,  pellucid, 
easy,  incisive.  One  knows  what  it  means,  every  word  of  it. 
It  arrests  attention.  It  "hits  the  nail  on  the  head";  it  does 
its  work ;  it  makes  one  think,  and,  still  more,  makes  one  act. 
Franklin  had  not  the  imaginative  genius  and  pungency  of 
phrase  that  lighted  up  the  masterpieces  of  the  fierce  Dean. 
But  he  was  a  kind  of  home-spun,  practical,  benevolent, 
large-souled  Swift  —  in  simplicity  of  speech,  quiet  humour, 
and  social  observation  of  men  and  manners.  A  really  solid, 
inexhaustible,  efficient  intellect  —  always,  in  every  circum- 
stance, master  of  itself,  true  to  itself. 


122  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

There  has  just  come  to  my  hands  a  little  volume  of  Selec- 
tions from  the  Writings  of  B.  Franklin,  which  may  serve  to 
give  those  who  will  not  read  ten  octavo  volumes  a  glimpse 
of  Franklin's  mind  and  style.  It  ranges  from  homely  hints 
to  a  young  tradesman  to  physical  experiments,  the  care  of 
health,  economics,  slavery  and  the  slave  trade,  the  American 
rebel  cause,  Imperialism,  grammar,  reading,  ladies'  toilettes, 
foreign  manners,  and  international  alliances.  Here  one  may 
read  the  letter  to  the  Royal  Society  explaining  the  famous 
"kite  experiment"  of  1752,  which  identified  lightning  with 
electricity,  and  gave  an  electric  shock  to  the  thought  of  Europe. 
Here  is  a  pleasant  causerie  on  the  game  of  chess;  there  a 
scathing  satire  on  the  "  Slave  trade  "  in  the  manner  of  Swift, 
which  reads  to-day  like  an  article  on  the  use  of  Chinese 
coolies  in  the  Rand.  We  are  again  reminded  of  Swift  in 
the  profoundly  wise  piece  of  caustic  wit  entitled  "Rules  for 
reducing  a  great  Empire  to  a  small  one."  One  by  one  all 
the  acts  of  folly  and  oppression  committed  on  the  American 
Colonies  by  the  Georgian  rule  are  laid  bare.  Paragraph  by 
paragraph  these  warnings  might  be  addressed  to  our  own 
transmarine  Empire,  and  I  am  not  sure  that  some  passages 
might  not  be  put  into  the  mouth  of  an  Irish  Nationalist. 

Franklin,  though  a  figure  less  majestic  than  Washington, 
less  imaginative  than  Hamilton,  remains  the  typical  Repub- 
lican citizen;  and  if  the  feeling  of  his  people  for  him  is  less 
that  of  reverence,  it  is  more  that  of  affection  and  fellowship. 
He  is  more  easily  understood  as  a  man,  and  his  origin  and  life 
are  more  akin  to  those  of  the  average  man.  He  will  ever 
be  remembered  by  the  noble  verse  of  Turgot,  which  embodies 
a  grand  tribute  to  the  patriot  in  an  exquisite  epigram : 

Eripuit  cselo  fulmen,  sceptrumque  tyrannis. 

He  wrested  the  thunderbolt  from  the  heavens  and  their 


BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN  123 

sceptre  from  tyrants.  What  remains  of  eighteenth-century 
Philadelphia  is  to-day  almost  the  only  historic  and  antique 
flotsam  in  the  United  States.  And  I  know  no  corner  of  that 
central  pile  more  pathetic  than  that  where,  in  the  roar  and 
bustle  of  that  vast  city,  we  come  upon  the  lowly  cemetery 
and  plain  slab,  as  ordered  by  his  testament,  inscribed  to 
"Benjamin  and  Deborah  Franklin,  1790." 


ALEXANDER    HAMILTON 

1906 

AN  English  study  of  Alexander  Hamilton,  in  the  domain 
of  thought  the  main  Founder  of  the  United  States  as  a  cohesive 
Commonwealth,  was  urgently  needed.  His  was  one  of  the 
finest  minds  of  the  eighteenth  century.  For  more  than  a 
century  the  great  State  he  did  so  much  to  create  has  been 
broadening  in  the  lines  which  he  traced  for  it,  and  to  the 
ends  which  his  genius  foresaw  more  truly  than  all  his  col- 
leagues. His  hurried  political  pamphlets,  which  brought 
order  out  of  chaos  at  the  close  of  the  War  of  Independence, 
have  taken  their  place  amongst  the  permanent  classics  of 
political  science.  And  yet  few  Englishmen  have  ever  opened 
the  Federalist]  and  many  well-read  students  of  history, 
who  know  all  about  his  personal  scandals  and  his  tragic  end, 
have  no  very  definite  convictions  as  to  the  share  in  forming 
the  United  States,  due  to  Washington,  to  Jefferson,  Madison, 
Adams,  and  to  Hamilton.  As  philosopher,  as  publicist,  as 
creative  genius,  Hamilton  was  far  the  most  important.  And 
it  was  indeed  time  that  English  readers  should  have  the  story 
told  them  from  the  English  point  of  view.  His  own  son, 
Senator  Cabot  Lodge,  and  other  American  writers  have  amply 
done  him  justice.  But  one  fears  that  standard  American 
works  are  not  assiduously  studied  in  England.  Mr.  Oliver's 
work,  which  is  not  a  biography,  but  "an  essay  on  American 
Union,"  adequately  supplies  a  real  want  in  political  history. 

124 


ALEXANDER  HAMILTON  125 

Sir  Henry  Maine,  in  his  work  on  Popular  Government, 
1885,  devoted  the  fourth  essay  to  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  which  he  truly  called  "much  the  most  im- 
portant political  instrument  of  modern  times."  And  through- 
out this  fourth  essay  Sir  Henry  does  ample  justice  to  the  sagac- 
ity and  foresight  of  Hamilton.  He  quotes  Chancellor  Kent, 
who  compares  the  Federalist  (mainly  written  by  Hamilton) 
with  Aristotle,  Cicero,  Machiavel,  Montesquieu,  Milton, 
Locke,  and  Burke;  and  Maine  declares  that  such  praise  is 
not  too  high.  Talleyrand,  a  diplomatist  and  a  cynic,  spoke 
of  Hamilton  with  enthusiasm,  and  Guizot  praised  his  polit- 
ical writings  as  of  consummate  wisdom  and  practical 
sagacity.  Mr.  Bryce,  in  his  great  work  on  The  American 
Commonwealth,  does  full  justice  to  Hamilton.  Sir  George 
Trevelyan,  in  his  American  Revolution,  calls  Hamilton  "the 
most  brilliant  and  most  tragic  figure  in  all  the  historical 
gallery  of  American  statesmen."  In  the  new  Cambridge 
Modern  History,  vol.  vii.,  Professor  Bigelow  truly  describes 
Hamilton  as  "the  master  spirit  of  the  Convention  which 
framed  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States."  "A  nation 
was  to  be  created  and  established,  created  of  jarring  common- 
wealths and  established  on  the  highest  level  of  right."  The 
accomplishment  of  this  stupendous  task  by  the  dominant 
character  of  George  Washington  and  the  piercing  genius  of 
Alexander  Hamilton  places  both  amongst  the  great  creative 
statesmen  of  the  world. 

Mr.  Oliver's  book  does  not  profess  to  be  a  history  or  a 
biography,  but "  merely  an  essay  on  the  character  and  achieve- 
ments of  a  man  who  was  the  chief  figure  in  a  series  of  strik- 
ing events."  This  is  perhaps  rather  too  modest  a  claim. 
For  the  years  from  1780  to  1796  —  the  years  when  Hamilton 
first  contributed  to  the  task  of  practical  statesmanship  down 
to  his  drafting  Washington's  "Farewell  Address"  —  the 


126  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

history  of  the  War  and  of  the  Settlement  during  the  two  Presi- 
dencies of  Washington  is  quite  adequately  sketched.  And 
as  to  a  biography  of  Hamilton,  a  living  portrait  of  the  man 
himself  is  vigorously  drawn  in  the  midst  of  the  historical 
and  political  chapters.  It  is  quite  true  that  Hamilton  and 
the  circumstances  of  his  career  are  by  no  means  the  exclusive 
subject.  Washington,  Jefferson,  Madison,  Adams,  Monroe, 
Burr,  and  other  prominent  politicians  have  sections  of  the 
book  to  themselves.  And  the  aims  and  principles  of  the 
various  parties  —  Federalists,  Democrats,  State  Rights, 
Republicans,  Patriots,  Neutralists  —  so  obscure  to  us  at 
home,  are  made  clear  as  the  story  moves. 

This  is  no  doubt  the  true,  perhaps  the  necessary  way  of 
recounting  the  life-work  of  Hamilton.  He  was  so  closely 
associated  with  every  phase  of  the  American  movement  for 
the  twenty  years  after  the  virtual  close  of  the  war  at  Yorktown, 
in  1781,  that  the  life  of  Hamilton  is  hardly  intelligible  unless 
we  read  it  as  part  of  the  history  of  his  country.  And  his 
relations  with  his  colleagues  in  government,  and  with  his 
opponents,  rivals,  and  enemies  in  controversy  and  intrigue, 
are  so  close  and  so  complex  that  no  true  portrait  of  Hamilton 
is  complete  till  we  have  sketches  of  his  contemporaries.  On 
the  whole,  Mr.  Oliver  has  set  Alexander  Hamilton  in  his 
true  place,  as  next  to  Washington,  the  leading  founder  of 
the  United  States  —  the  intellectual  creator  of  the  great 
Commonwealth  of  which  George  Washington  was  the  typical 
father  and  the  moral  hero. 

Hamilton  is  the  American  Burke  in  his  union  of  literary 
power  with  political  science.  If  he  falls  short  of  Burke  in 
the  majesty  of  speech  and  the  splendour  of  many-sided  gifts, 
he  was  never  hurried  into  the  frantic  passions  and  fatal 
blunders  which  finally  ruined  Burke's  influence  over  his  age. 
Hamilton  at  times  exaggerated  the  dangers  he  foresaw,  was 


ALEXANDER   HAMILTON  127 

too  pessimist  and  even  unjust  to  the  failings  he  condemned. 
But  on  the  whole  he  made  no  great  mistake,  and  all  those 
ideas  for  which  he  struggled  with  such  tenacity  and  earnest- 
ness have  in  the  course  of  ages  come  to  a  triumphant  issue. 
Hamilton,  too,  reminds  us  of  Burke  in  the  sadness  of  his 
personal  history,  in  the  poignant  disappointments  of  his 
career,  and  in  the  want  of  full  recognition  of  his  supreme 
greatness  in  his  lifetime.  Colleagues  whom  we  now  see  to 
have  been  his  inferiors,  both  morally  and  intellectually,  men 
representing  lower  ideals,  came  to  the  first  place  in  the  State 
he  had  created,  a  seat  to  which  it  was  quite  impossible  that  he 
could  have  been  chosen.  Even  in  America  Hamilton  has 
hardly  been  judged  with  full  honour.  He  was  too  conser- 
vative, too  anti-democratic,  of  too  philosophic  a  tempera- 
ment, too  much  the  idealist,  and  too  little  the  demagogue  ever 
to  attain  the  popularity  which  wins  the  votes  of  a  vast  majority. 
The  book  has  a  moral  —  somewhat  startling,  and  at  the 
present  moment  charged  with  lively  interest.  The  conclud- 
ing book  is  occupied  with  general  reflections  upon  Nationality, 
Empire,  Union,  and  Sovereignty;  and  the  problem  of  weld- 
ing the  thirteen  American  States  into  a  single  Commonwealth 
is  applied  to  the  present-day  problem  of  reconciling  the 
British  Constitution  with  our  transmarine  Empire.  Mr. 
Oliver,  if  I  understand  him  aright,  seems  afraid  that  the 
British  Empire  is  held  together  by  bonds  too  loose  and  unde- 
fined, and  would  urge  on  it  the  Hamiltonian  doctrine  of 
central  Sovereignty  and  resolute  Union.  He  quotes  Wash- 
ington's maxim:  "Influence  is  not  government."  He  says 
the  tie  of  affection  or  kinship  is  not  union.  He  seems,  like 
Hobbes  and  Austin,  to  ask  for  force  as  the  basis  of  true  union 
and  government.  Why,  the  self-governing  Colonies  would 
fly  into  fifty  bits  at  the  mere  sound  of  such  a  thing.  The 
American  Civil  War  of  1863  would  be  a  flea-bite  compared 


128  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

to  this.  For  my  part,  I  quite  agree  with  Washington  that 
"influence  is  not  government,"  and  with  Mr.  Oliver  that 
sentimental  ties  are  not  Union.  But  the  casual  conglomera- 
tion called  the  British  Empire  has  nothing  else  to  rest  on, 
and  the  least  attempt  to  bind  it  with  closer  ties  would  mean 
immediate  and  final  disruption. 


THACKERAY 

1903 

THE  appearance  of  a  great  contemporary  writer's  works 
in  various  forms,  as  by  the  law  of  copyright  his  books  become, 
one  by  one,  the  property  of  the  public,  reminds  us  that  he  has 
now  entered  into  the  literary  elysium  shared  only  by  those 
who  are  English  Classics.  A  "Classic"  is  one  who,  being 
dead  and  gone,  is  read  more  freely  and  with  more  reverence 
than  ever  was  done  in  his  lifetime ;  one  whose  rank  is  settled 
and  acknowledged ;  who  is  found  in  manifold  shapes  of  type 
and  form,  and  has  a  familiar  corner  in  every  household. 

Thackeray  is  eminently  a  classic.  It  is  safe  to  predict 
that  no  prose  writer  of  the  nineteenth  century  will  retain  a 
more  steady,  even,  and  general  popularity,  and  be  for  ages 
one  of  the  typical  facts  in  the  history  of  English  letters.  The 
combination  of  faultless  English,  at  once  pure,  nervous,  and 
simple,  with  wit,  humour,  insight  into  the  human  heart, 
and  perfect  command  of  his  own  genius  and  knowledge  of  its 
resources  and  its  limits  —  this  forms  a  power  so  rare  that  the 
scholar  and  the  "general  reader,"  the  philosopher  and  the 
man  of  the  world,  the  literary  virtuoso  and  the  novel-trotter, 
can  all  enjoy  it,  and  will  always  enjoy  it.  Thackeray  has 
been  dead  now  nearly  forty  years ;  he  became  famous  nearly 
sixty  years  ago ;  his  masterpiece  is  now  fifty-five  years  old ; 
and  his  collected  works  were  published  thirty-three  years 
ago. 

K  129 


130  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

And  now  Messrs.  Dent  and  Co.  are  issuing  an  edition  of 
his  prose  works  in  thirty  volumes,  each  with  some  ten  illus- 
trations, at  a  modest  price,  in  continuation  of  their  standard 
editions  of  Old  English  authors.  The  form  is  convenient, 
the  type  easy,  and  the  illustrations  entirely  adequate  (which 
in  such  a  case  is  saying  a  good  deal).  Thackeray  will  go  on 
and  will  continue  long  to  be  read  in  a  dozen  different  forms. 
I  have  read  him  in  the  magnificent  large  octavo  edition,  with 
his  own  illustrations,  of  1883-86  (which  cost  a  small  fortune), 
and  also  in  the  twelve- volume  edition  of  1871-72,  and  in 
many  more  editions,  including  the  handy  contraband  of 
foreign  reprinters.  And  now,  as  I  take  up  the  new  issue  in 
thirty  volumes,  I  can  hardly  get  on  with  this  article  for  dip- 
ping into  my  favourite  scenes  and  wasting  my  time  over  pas- 
sages that  I  know  by  heart.  He  is  ever  fresh,  ever  welcome, 
ever  racy  — dear  old  "Snob." 

As  I  turn  over  this  issue  of  thirty  volumes  of  prose  —  and 
he  left  us  capital  ballads,  burlesques,  and  rhyming  tags  as 
well  —  I  am  amazed  at  this  huge  product  of  a  writer  who 
died  at  the  age  of  fifty-two.  It  was  also  the  age  of  Shake- 
speare at  his  death.  I  do  not  recall  the  name  of  any  of  our 
great  prose  writers,  except  Henry  Fielding  and  Goldsmith, 
who  died  at  so  early  an  age.  Scott  and  Dickens,  who  both 
worked  themselves  to  death,  reached  a  somewhat  longer 
term.  Some  poets,  and  two  rare  women  novelists,  died  even 
younger.  But  almost  all  our  great  prose  writers  amongst 
men  lived  and  wrote  to  a  riper  age,  some  of  them  into 
a  great  age,  as  Hallam,  De  Quincey,  and  Carlyle.  But 
Shakespeare,  Fielding,  Thackeray,  all  died  in  middle  life, 
leaving  an  immense  output.  I  do  not  claim  Thackeray  as 
the  peer  of  Shakespeare,  nor,  indeed,  of  Fielding.  But  he 
has  a  measure  of  their  supreme  qualities  of  insight  into  the 
human  heart,  their  zest  for  life,  their  broad  outlook  at  the 


THACKERAY  131 

world,  and  its  strange  contrasts  of  manners,  ranks,  and 
characters. 

There  is  another  quality  in  which  I  hold  Thackeray  to  be 
eminent.  I  mean  his  sober  evenness  of  workmanship.  He 
is  almost  never  slovenly,  or  extravagant,  or  drivelling.  He 
wrote  too  much,  as  they  all  did,  and  wrote  for  money,  and  not 
for  fame  or  love  of  his  art.  He  wrote  many  pieces  that  are 
quite  below  his  best  and  his  true  form.  But  even  his  worst 
are  written  in  that  faultless  and  racy  English  of  which  he 
was  master ;  they  are  never  hysterical,  bombastic,  or  farcical ; 
they  are  never  so  nonsensical  or  so  tedious  that  we  cannot 
read  them  twice.  Now,  Fielding  poured  out  volumes  of 
dramatic  rubbish ;  Dickens  is  insufferably  maudlin  at  times, 
and  too  often  grossly  affected ;  Lytton  is  sometimes  ludicrous, 
and  George  Eliot  is  sometimes  pedantic;  Trollope  gives 
us  stale  small  beer  at  times ;  Kingsley,  Charlotte  Bronte  can 
be  both  coarse  and  sensational.  Even  Scott  and  Shake- 
speare, Olympians  as  they  are,  would  rattle  off  what  they  knew 
to  be  rubbish  when  the  printer's  boy  or  the  prompter's  boy 
was  waiting  for  copy.  But  Thackeray,  though  he  ended  at 
last  in  some  very  poor  stuff,  never  flung  at  us  rank  balderdash 
or  careless  gabble. 

Thackeray  is  a  special  favourite  of  mine,  mainly  by  reason 
of  his  consummate  flow  of  effervescing  talk,  his  inexhaustible 
wit,  and  never-failing  manly  good  sense.  He  is  the  jolly 
man-of-the-world  who  sees  the  follies  and  pretences  of  people 
about  him,  holds  them  up  to  contempt,  but  is  never  morose, 
sardonic,  or  peevish.  I  am  quite  aware  of  Thackeray's 
limitations,  and  I  am  not  about  to  ignore  them.  I  do  not 
say  he  is  a  Fielding  or  a  Scott,  nor  a  Moliere  or  a  Cervantes. 
But  I  do  say  that  Vanity  Fair,  as  a  comedy  of  modern 
society,  is  the  best  we  have  had  since  Tom  Jones',  and,  if 
it  be  placed  on  a  narrower  stage,  and  inspired  with  a  less 


132  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

generous  spirit  than  Tom  Jones,  it  may  be  put  beside  it,  and 
will  live  along  with  it.  Thackeray  is  not  an  epic  poet  like 
Scott ;  he  has  not  the  deep  pathos  that  Dickens  has  reached 
more  than  once,  and  Richardson  many  times ;  he  has  not  the 
noble  humanity  of  Fielding ;  he  has  not  the  feminine  subtlety 
of  Jane  Austen  or  of  Charlotte  Bronte.  He  has  not  the  Gar- 
gantuan rage  of  Swift,  nor  the  idyllic  charm  of  Goldsmith. 
But  his  prose,  as  English  style,  is  superior  to  any  other  prose 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  His  invention  is  the  least  spas- 
modic and  uneasy.  And  he  will  long  stand  with  Fielding, 
Richardson,  and  Scott  as  one  of  our  four  or  five  standard 
romancists. 

Years  ago,  when  I  tried  to  make  an  estimate  of  Thackeray, 
I  was  moved  to  say  that,  "of  all  the  Englishmen  of  his  cen- 
tury, he  had  written  the  best  comedy  of  manners,  the  best 
extravaganza,  the  best  burlesque,  the  best  parody,  and  the 
best  comic  song,"  and  that  some  of  his  admirers  would  add 
"the  best  lectures  and  the  best  critical  essays."  This  was  a 
parody  of  Byron's  famous  eulogy  of  Sheridan;  and  I  hold 
that  it  had  as  much  justification.  Vanity  Fair  may  be  really 
"the  best  comedy  of  manners"  without  being  the  greatest 
romance  of  the  century.  It  has  not  the  epic  poetry  of  Scott's 
best,  nor  the  rollicking  waggery  of  Dickens  at  his  best ;  nor 
has  it  the  exquisite  aroma  of  Jane  Austen's  boudoir,  nor  the 
intense  passion  of  Jane  Eyre's  confessions.  But  as  a  serious 
anatomy  of  social  manners  in  abroad  and  judicial  spirit  it 
has  something  that  none  of  these  have,  that  nothing  has  since 
Tom  Jones,  something  Shakespearean  in  its  sane,  compre- 
hensive, penetrating  survey  of  human  character  all  round. 

Vanity  Fair,  too,  stands  out  again  as  far  the  chief  master- 
piece of  Thackeray.  For,  to  my  mind,  Esmond,  with  all  its 
beauties  and  its  wonderful  mastery  of  the  style  and  tone  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  is  too  artificial.  And  the  Newcomes 


THACKERAY  133 

and  Pendennis,  for  all  their  minor  merits,  are  too  much 
variations  upon  one  key,  and  have  no  such  power,  no  such 
unforgettable  characters,  as  Vanity  Fair.  This  novel  also 
is  the  only  one  of  all  Thackeray's  longer  romances  which 
has  anything  that  can  be  called  a  plot,  a  drama,  and  an 
organic  story  of  action.  The  plot  of  Vanity  Fair  is  thin  and 
desultory  enough  —  not  to  be  named  beside  the  plots  of 
Tom  Jones  or  Clarissa,  of  The  Antiquary  or  of  Jane  Eyre. 
But  it  has  something  that  can  be  called  a  drama  of  incident 
worked  out  to  a  catastrophe.  This  cannot  be  fairly  said  of 
any  other  of  Thackeray's  longer  romances.  The  story  of 
them  wanders  on  in  the  manner  of  serials  composed  from 
month  to  month.  I  doubt  if  a  reader  of  the  Virginians,  of 
Lovel,  or  of  Philip,  could  write  out  from  memory  a  summary 
of  the  plot  of  any  of  them. 

This  leads  us  to  another  point  —  that  Thackeray  is  pecul- 
iarly at  home  in  his  shorter  pieces  and  in  detached  studies. 
I  always  hold  the  Hoggarty  Diamond  to  be  in  his  best  vein. 
The  Snob  papers,  again,  have  every  one  of  his  qualities  in 
perfection.  Few  satires,  unless  it  be  Don  Quixote,  Pantag- 
ruel,  Gil  Bias,  and  The  Barber  of  Seville,  have  ever  killed 
the  affectations  they  attacked  and  improved  public  opinion. 
But  the  Book  oj  Snobs  really  killed  certain  forms  of  snobbery 
and  reformed  social  taste.  The  book  has  lost  much  of  its 
interest  because  it  paints  to  some  degree  effete  types  of  folly. 
It  was  for  this  that  Charlotte  Bronte  called  Thackeray  "the 
first  social  regenerator  of  the  day."  He  was  hardly  that. 
But,  in  spite  of  his  turn  for  painting  vulgarity,  rascality, 
meanness,  hypocrisy,  pretentiousness,  base  natures,  low  vices, 
and  pitiful  shams,  although  he  is  much  more  at  home  with  a 
mean  character  than  he  is  with  a  noble  nature  —  Thackeray 
is  not  a  cynical  mocker  at  human  goodness.  He  loved  the 
best  in  human  nature.  He  did  not  a  little  to  develop  it. 


REMINISCENCES   OF   GEORGE   ELIOT 

1901 

IT  is  now  some  years  ago  that  I  ventured  to  make  a  predic- 
tion that  "it  will  be  the  duty  of  the  more  serious  criticism  of 
another  generation  to  revive  the  reputation  of  George  Eliot 
as  an  abiding  literary  force."  And  the  quality  which  I  espe- 
cially noted  was  this,  that  "she  raised  the  whole  art  of  ro- 
mance into  a  higher  plane  of  thought,  of  culture,  and  of  philo- 
sophic grasp."  I  thought  that  this  "noble  aim"  of  hers  was 
being  too  much  overlooked  —  and  I  think  this  is  still  true  in 
England.  Her  American  admirers  have  shown  more  con- 
stancy in  their  affection. 

It  is  more  than  forty-one  years  since  I  first  made  her  ac- 
quaintance, on  New  Year's  Day  1860,  at  the  house  of  her 
close  friends,  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Richard  Congreve,  at  Wands- 
worth.  It  was  twenty-one  years  later,  almost  to  a  day,  that 
I  was  one  of  the  mourners  who  followed  her  body  to  the  grave 
in  Highgate  Cemetery  on  the  2Qth  December  1880.  During 
those  twenty-one  years  I  constantly  saw  her,  had  much  con- 
versation with  her  on  literary  and  philosophical  topics,  and 
received  many  letters  relating  to  her  own  writings,  and  also 
to  her  views  on  art,  politics,  and  religion.  Some  of  these 
letters  have  been  published  by  her  husband,  but  the  incidents 
that  called  them  forth  are  not  quite  evident  to  the  readers  of 
Mr.  Cross's  Life,  and  some  of  the  most  interesting  have  not 
been  published  at  all.  I  am  asked  to  contribute  my  own 

'34 


REMINISCENCES   OF   GEORGE   ELIOT  135 

recollections  of  her  conception  of  life  and  her  methods  of 
work.  Having  the  sanction  of  those  whom  she  left  behind 
her,  I  will  try,  before  it  is  too  late,  to  put  down  my  memories 
of  a  friend  whom  I  so  profoundly  honoured.  As  I  do  this, 
I  recall  to  mind  not  a  few  of  the  most  golden  days  of  my  past 
life,  and  some  of  the  most  inspiring  "banquets"  or  symposia 
of  high  thinking  to  which  it  has  ever  been  my  fortune  to  be 
bidden  as  a  guest. 

How  well  I  remember  that  New  Year's  Day  when  I  met 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lewes  at  the  dinner  table  of  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Richard  Congreve !  She  was  then  at  the  age  of  forty,  in  the 
first  outburst  of  her  fame  as  the  author  of  Adam  Bede,  and 
was  just  finishing  the  second  volume  of  the  M ill  on  the  Floss. 
She  had  no  friends  at  Wandsworth  except  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Richard  Congreve,  who  had  made  her  acquaintance  the  year 
before.  Mrs.  Congreve,  she  wrote  in  her  journal  (May  3, 
1859),  "was  the  chief  charm  of  the  place  to  me."  Dr. 
Congreve  had  retired  for  some  years  from  his  work  at  Oxford 
to  give  himself  up  to  the  study  and  propaganda  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  Auguste  Comte.  He  had  just  published  his  trans- 
lation of  the  Positivist  Catechism,  which  Mrs.  Lewes  had 
already  read,  whilst  George  Lewes  was  occupied  with  the 
Politique  of  Comte.  I  was  a  young  man,  just  called  to  the 
bar,  who  had  been  the  pupil  and  then  as  tutor  was  the  suc- 
cessor of  Richard  Congreve  at  Oxford,  but  I  had  written 
nothing,  and  was  quite  unknown  to  the  public.  Though  we 
were  all  more  or  less  interested  in  Comte,  the  talk  round  the 
table  was  quite  general,  and  the  small  party  was  nothing  but 
a  simple  gathering  of  intimate  friends. 

I  listened  with  lively  interest  to  the  words  of  one  who  was 
already  famous,  who  from  the  first  moment  impressed  every 
one  with  a  sense  of  grave  thought,  high  ideals,  and  scrupulous 
courtesy.  She  had  not  a  grain  of  self-importance  in  her 


136  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

manner,  and  took  quite  a  simple  and  modest  part  in  the  gen- 
eral talk,  listening  to  the  brilliant  sallies  of  George  Lewes  with 
undisguised  delight,  respecting  Congreve's  views  as  those  of 
a  trained  historian  and  scholar,  and  showing  me  the  kindly 
welcome  of  a  gracious  woman  to  the  friend  of  her  friends. 
I  remember  an  argument  in  which  she  engaged  me,  wherein  I 
thought,  as  I  still  think,  she  was  mistaken.  She  maintained, 
apropos  of  a  review  of  troops  she  had  lately  seen,  that  "the 
pomp  and  circumstance  of  glorious  war"  was  more  con- 
spicuous in  our  day  than  it  was  in  the  Middle  Ages.  Having 
some  knowledge  of  mediaeval  art,  Italian  war-paintings,  and 
illuminated  Froissarts,  I  ventured  to  doubt.  The  company 
seemed  to  think  me  bold  in  venturing  to  differ  from  her  opin- 
ion on  a  matter  of  local  colour.  But  she  did  not  think  so 
herself ;  and  nothing  could  be  more  graceful  than  the  patience 
with  which  she  listened  to  my  points. 

In  the  year  1860,  at  Wandsworth,  she  was  working  under 
severe  pressure,  having  broken  with  her  own  family,  retain- 
ing only  one  or  two  women  friends,  quite  unknown  to  general 
society.  Years  afterwards,  when  she  lived  in  London  and  at 
Witley,  she  had  the  cultured  world  at  her  feet;  men  and 
women  of  rank  and  reputation  crowded  her  Sunday  receptions, 
and  she  was  surrounded  by  friends  and  reverential  worship- 
pers of  her  genius.  But  she  remained  still  the  same  quiet, 
grave,  reserved  woman  that  she  had  been  in  her  retreat  and 
isolation  at  Wandsworth,  always  modest  in  her  bearing, 
almost  deferential  towards  any  form  of  acknowledged  repu- 
tation, almost  morbidly  distrustful  of  herself,  and  eager  to 
purge  out  of  her  soul  any  germ  of  arrogance  and  pride  that 
her  fame  and  the  court  paid  to  her  by  men  and  women  of 
mark  could  possibly  tend  to  breed. 

It  was  the  foundation  of  the  Fortnightly  Review,  in  1865, 
which  brought  me  into  constant  association  with  Mr.  Lewes, 


REMINISCENCES   OF  GEORGE  ELIOT  137 

who  was  then  established  in  the  Priory,  Regent's  Park.  Early 
in  1865  George  Lewes  was  chosen  as  its  first  editor.  I  con- 
tributed in  that  year  four  articles  to  the  new  organ,  and 
George  Eliot  wrote  in  the  first  number.  I  was  at  that  time 
a  constant  visitor  at  the  Priory,  where  Herbert  Spencer, 
Thomas  Huxley,  Anthony  Trollope,  the  Congreves,  Deutsch, 
and  Sir  Frederic  Burton  were  frequently  found.  I  there 
learned  to  estimate  at  its  full  value  the  immense  range  of 
George  Eliot's  reading,  both  in  poetry  and  in  philosophy, 
the  high  standard  of  duty,  whether  personal  or  social,  that 
she  kept  before  her  own  sight  and  required  of  others,  and  the 
conscientious  labour  she  devoted  to  her  own  art. 

George  Eliot  was  occupied  on  her  novel  of  Felix  Holt 
during  1865  and  the  first  half  of  1866;  and,  as  every  reader 
knows,  the  plot  and  denouement  in  the  later  part  of 
the  story  turn  on  an  intricate  Jegal  imbroglio,  whereby 
an  old  English  family  were  suddenly  dispossessed  of  their 
estates  which  they  had  held  for  many  generations.  She  had 
endeavoured  to  work  out  this  problem  for  herself,  but  found 
herself  involved  in  hopeless  technicalities  of  law.  As  is 
stated  by  Mr.  Cross  in  the  opening  of  chapter  xiii.,  she  had 
written  me  the  kind  letter  of  January  5,  1866,  to  invite  me 
to  join  a  party  consisting  of  Herbert  Spencer,  T.  Huxley, 
and  others,  and  she  there  imparted  to  me  her  difficulties  as 
to  the  law  of  entail  and  the  statutes  of  limitations.  She  wrote 
of  it  in  a  letter  to  me  of  the  Qth  January  that  she  "must  go 
sounding  on  her  dim  and  perilous  way  through  law-books 
amidst  agonies  of  doubt."  I  offered  her  text-books,  but  she 
preferred  to  put  to  me  her  difficulties  in  writing.  The  law 
case  she  required  to  fit  her  plot  in  the  year  1832  was  one  which 
on  the  first  sight  of  it  seemed  impossible  in  the  face  of  the 
statutes  of  limitations.  She  wanted  to  dispossess  a  family 
v/kichhad  been  in  peaceable  possession  of  estates  for  a  century. 


138  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

This  was  "the  statement  of  her  needs,"  as  she  termed 
it: 

It  is  required  to  know  the  longest  possible  term  of  years  for  the 
existence  of  the  following  conditions  : 

1 .  That  an  estate,  for  lack  of  a  direct  heir,  should  have  come  into 
the  possession   of   A   (or    of  a    series  —  A,  A',  A"  —  if   that    were 
admissible). 

2.  That  subsequently  a  claim  should  have  been  set  up  by  B,  on  a 
valid  plea  of  nearer  kinship. 

3.  That  B  should  have  failed  in  his  suit  from  inability  to  prove  his 
identity,  over  which  certain  circumstances  (already  fixed)  should  have 
cast  a  doubt,  and  should  have  died  soon  after. 

4.  That   B's  daughter,  being  an  infant   at  the  time  of  his  death, 
should  have  come  to  years  of  discretion  and  have  a  legal  claim  on  the 
estate. 

These  are  the  essentials  as  closely  as  I  can  strip  them.  The  last, 
viz.,  the  legal  claim  of  B's  daughter,  might  be  dispensed  with,  if  the 
adequate  stretching  of  the  time  is  not  to  be  obtained  by  any  formula  of 
conditions.  The  moral  necessities  of  the  situation  might  be  met  by 
the  fact  of  injustice  and  foul  play  towards  B ;  but  I  should  prefer  the 
legal  claim,  if  possible. 

You  see,  I  should  be  glad  of  as  large  a  slice  of  a  century  as  you 
could  give  me,  but  I  should  be  resigned  if  I  could  get  forty  years. 

I  was  at  first  inclined  to  think  the  case  to  be  impossible,  as 
contrary  to  the  then  existing  statutes  of  limitations.  But  I 
presently  fell  back  on  the  rare,  but  not  impossible,  case 
of  a  Base  Fee,  under  which  a  settlement  might  be  perfectly 
valid  for  the  issue  of  a  tenant-in-tail  for  many  generations, 
but  would  not  bar  the  rights  of  the  remainder-men.  It  hap- 
pened that,  before  I  finally  submitted  the  scheme  to  George 
Eliot,  I  asked  the  opinion  of  a  colleague  at  the  bar.  The 
man  I  consulted  chanced  to  be  the  late  Lord  Herschell,  the 
ex- Chancellor,  who  died  on  a  public  mission  in  the  United 
States  and  who  was  then  a  junior  barrister.  Having  his 
entire  concurrence,  I  carried  the  scheme  to  George  Eliot, 
who  at  once  recast  her  plot,  and  was  enabled  to  carry  back 
the  settlement  of  the  Transome  estates  not  only  for  forty 


REMINISCENCES   OF   GEORGE   ELIOT  139 

years,  but  for  more  than  a  century.  An  attempt  was  made 
in  a  review  to  throw  doubt  upon  the  correctness  of  the  law 
on  which  Felix  Holt  was  based ;  but  an  eminent  conveyancer 
of  Lincoln's  Inn  disposed  of  this  criticism  in  a  conclusive 
answer  in  the  press. 

I  have  in  my  possession  about  sixteen  letters  written  to  me 
in  the  months  from  January  to  May  1866,  asking  for  assist- 
ance in  legal  points  relating  to  Felix  Holt.  And  during  that 
period  I  had  many  interviews  with  her  thereon,  and  read  large 
portions  of  the  story  in  MS.  and  in  proof.  The  letters  and 
my  own  recollections  testify  to  the  indefatigable  pains  that 
she  took  with  every  point  of  local  colour,  her  anxiety  about 
scrupulous  accuracy  of  fact,  and  the  often  feeble  health  under 
which  the  book  was  produced. 

I  was  again  consulted  on  an  incidental  point  of  law  in  the 
novel  of  Daniel  Deronda.  The  letter  of  June  i,  1875  (partly 
printed  by  Cross,  Life,  iii.  258),  begged  me  to  come  and  talk 
over  a  point  of  difficulty.  On  the  day  following  I  received 

this  letter : 

June  2, '7$. 

DEAR  MR.  HARRISON — Herewith  the  statement  you  have  kindly 
allowed  me  to  send. 

It  occurs  to  me  that  in  my  brief,  fragmentary  chat  with  Mr.  Bowen 
he  had  gathered  Sir  H.  to  be  a  tenant-in-tail  coming  of  age,  so  that  his 
Father  could  make  no  disposition  without  his  consent.  But  even  then 
I  don't  see  why  he  —  Sir  H.  —  should  have  objected  to  a  settlement  in 
the  given  sense.  Do  you  ?  This  question  has  reference  simply  to  my 
alarms  about  apparent  improbabilities.  —  Yours  thankfully, 

M.  E.  LEWES. 

This  question  referred  to  the  desire  of  Sir  Hugo  Mallinger 
as  to  the  settlement  of  the  estates.  She  had  consulted  Charles 
Bowen,  then  a  junior  barrister  and  afterwards  Lord  Bowen, 
Lord  of  Appeal,  but  only  in  casual  conversation.  She 
then  sent  me  a  statement  of  the  case  she  needed  for  the 
plot,  and  I  forwarded  to  her  the  sketch  of  a  possible 


140 


MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 


solution.    This    satisfied     her    requirements.     She    wrote 
(June  15,  1875): 

I  must  write  to  tell  you  my  joy  that  on  further  study  of  your 
"  document "  I  find  in  it  precisely  the  case  that  will  suit  the  conditions 
I  had  already  prepared.  I  mean  the  case  that  "  Sir  H.  might  ardently 
desire  a  particular  house  and  property,  locally  part  of  the  settled  estates 
or  not,  to  leave  to  his  widow  and  daughters  for  their  home  and  resi- 
dence, etc."  Clearly  I  have  a  special  Providence  to  whom  my  grati- 
tude is  due,  and  he  is  the  able  conveyancer  who  has  drawn  up  said 
document.  We  are  in  the  pangs  of  preparation  for  starting  to-morrow 
morning. 

Felix  Holt  and  Daniel  Deronda  were  the  only  novels  on 
which  I  was  consulted,  and  then  simply  as  to  points  of  law 
and  legal  practice.  I  wrote  the  "opinion"  of  the  Attorney- 
General,  printed  in  italics  in  chapter  xxxv.  of  Felix  Holt, 
as  a  guide  to  the  language  used  in  Lincoln's  Inn,  and  she  in- 
serted it  bodily  in  the  book.  I  remember  telling  her  that  I 
should  always  boast  of  having  written  one  sentence  that  was 
embodied  in  English  literature.  The  "opinion"  was  little 
more  than  "common  form,"  and  she  took  kindly  my  little 
mot.  I  need  hardly  say  that  I  had  nothing  whatever  to  do 
with  the  composition  or  scheme  of  either  of  these  tales,  nor 
with  anything  else  of  her  work.  I  do  not  think  any  one  else 
had.  Except  that  she  took  pains  to  be  accurate  as  to  legal 
subtleties,  as  to  facts  of  history,  and  the  Jewish  rites  in  Daniel 
Deronda,  I  do  not  believe  she  took  counsel  of  any  one  but  of 
George  Lewes.  Everything  she  produced  was  entirely 
original,  both  in  conception  and  in  execution. 

My  purpose  in  this  paper  is  to  try  to  clear  up  such  points 
as  this,  and  to  explain  the  meaning  of  some  letters  of  hers 
printed  by  Mr.  Cross,  but  of  which  he  could  give  no  elucidation. 
The  very  long  and  beautiful  letter  of  August  15,  1866,  printed 
in  chapter  xiii.  of  the  Life  and  Letters,  headed  "Aesthetic 
Teaching,"  is  hardly  intelligible  without  some  account  of  the 


REMINISCENCES   OF  GEORGE   ELIOT  141 

proposal  to  which  it  was  an  answer.  During  her  absence  at 
the  German  Baths  in  July  of  that  year  I  wrote  her  a  long 
letter  to  suggest  that  she  might  use  her  great  powers  of  imagi- 
nation and  her  deep  interest  in  social  questions  to  describe  an 
ideal  state  of  industrial  life.  It  would  present  a  picture  of 
the  relations  of  all  concerned  in  a  great  manufacturing  in- 
dustry, under  conditions  of  health,  happiness,  and  beauty, 
so  as  to  realise  the  Utopia  of  regenerated  Industry  directed 
by  an  efficient  spiritual  force  and  inspired  by  the  providence 
of  Humanity,  as  conceived  by  Auguste  Comte.  George 
Eliot  had  been  a  careful  student  of  all  his  works  for  many 
years,  and  through  the  Congreves  she  was  familiar  with  every 
phase  of  the  Positivist  ideal,  with  the  general  idea  of  which 
she  had  entire  sympathy.  I  even  suggested,  as  a  milieu,  a 
manufacturing  village  in  a  beautiful  part  of  northern  France, 
where  the  owner  of  a  great  factory  had  reorganised  Labour 
on  humane  and  social  lines,  himself  an  ardent  republican  and 
ex-socialist,  whilst  the  education  and  worship  of  the  township 
were  directed  by  the  local  physician,  who  exerted  a  positive 
priesthood  on  a  basis  of  scientific  convictions. 

Her  long  and  convincing  letter  of  August  1 5  was  her  answer 
to  this  proposal.  She  feared  (and  no  doubt  with  some  reason) 
that  the  effort  to  idealise  a  social  state,  consciously  imagined 
as  possible  only  in  the  future,  would  want  the  life  and  reality 
that  she  gave  to  her  modern  pictures.  She  was  quite  in  her 
element  in  painting  character.  She  did  not  shrink  from  treat- 
ing a  past  epoch,  as  in  Romola,  "The  Spanish  Gypsy,"  etc., 
etc.  But,  as  she  says  in  the  letter,  she  was  there  dealing  with 
only  some  of  the  relations,  treating  of  selected  characters, 
not  with  a  form  of  society  with  definite  moral  problems,  nor 
with  the  panorama  of  a  regenerated  type  of  human  life. 
Furthermore,  she  adds,  her  gift  for  tragic  crises  would  have 
no  scope  in  the  tableau  of  a  glorified  world  where  virtue  and 


142  MEMORIES   AND    THOUGHTS 

happiness  reigned.  She  was  no  doubt  quite  right.  She 
shrank  from  any  Utopia  in  which  there  was  danger  that  "the 
picture  might  lapse  into  the  diagram."  But  the  idea,  as  she 
said,  continued  to  rest  in  her  mind. 

The  poem  of  "The  Spanish  Gypsy"  was  one  result  of  the 
conception  that  was  floating  in  her  mind  of  presenting  in  a 
typical  scene  some  of  the  phases  of  a  religion  of  Human 
Duty.  Later  on  she  wrote  to  me : 

Yes,  indeed,  I  not  only  remember  your  letter,  but  have  always  kept 
it  at  hand,  and  have  read  it  many  times.  Within  these  latter  months  I 
have  seemed  to  see  in  the  distance  a  possible  poem  shaped  on  your 
idea.  But  it  would  be  better  for  you  to  encourage  the  growth  towards 
realisation  in  your  own  mind  rather  than  trust  to  transplantation. 

My  own  faint  conception  is  that  of  a  frankly  Utopian  construction, 
freeing  the  poet  from  all  local  embarrassments.  Great  Epics  have 
always  had  more  or  less  of  this  character  —  only  the  construction  has 
been  of  the  past,  not  of  the  future.  Write  to  me  —  Poste  Restante, 
Baden-Baden,  within  the  next  fortnight.  My  head  will  have  got 
clearer  then.  — CROSS  {Life,  iii.  51). 

In  the  beginning  of  1867  George  Eliot  made  the  memorable 
journey  to  Spain,  from  which  she  wrote  to  me  the  beautiful 
letter  given  by  Mr.  Cross  (iii.  8).  She  was  then  meditating 
her  poem;  and  undoubtedly  Positivist  ethics  supplied  her 
with  the  conception  of  Zarca. 

The  relation  of  George  Eliot  towards  the  ideal  of  Auguste 
Comte  has  been  accurately  stated  by  Mr.  Cross  (vol.  iii.  419) 
as  "a  limited  adherence."  "For  all  Comte's  writing  she 
had  a  feeling  of  high  admiration,  intense  interest,  and  very 
deep  sympathy."  "But  the  appreciation  was  thoroughly 
selective.  Parts  of  his  teaching  were  accepted  and  other  parts 
rejected."  But  her  letters  to  me  and  her  conversation  showed 
something  more  than  sympathy,  and  not  a  little  practical 
co-operation.  Her  life-long  friendship  with  Richard  Con- 
greve,  the  recognised  leader  of  English  Positivism,  began  in 


REMINISCENCES   OF    GEORGE   ELIOT  143 

February  1859,  and  continued  until  her  death  in  December 
1880.  From  that  time  she  read  Comte  regularly,  and  was 
occupied  on  him  during  her  last  illness.  The  study  of  him, 
she  wrote  in  January  1867,  "  keeps  me  in  a  state  of  enthusiasm 
through  the  day  —  a  moral  glow."  "My  gratitude  increases 
continually  for  the  illumination  Comte  has  contributed  to 
my  life."  She  subscribed  to  the  foundation  of  the  Positivist 
School  in  1870,  of  which  Richard  Congreve  remained  Direc- 
tor until  his  death  in  1899,  and  also  to  the  foundation  of  New- 
ton Hall,  of  which  I  have  been  the  President  since  1881. 
And  I  have  many  letters  from  her  relating  to  Positivist  writ- 
ings of  my  own.  An  interesting  letter  is  that  referring  to  the 
attack  of  Matthew  Arnold  on  Comte. 

On  the  publication  of  my  article  on  "Culture,"  reprinted 
in  my  Choice  of  Books,  she  wrote  to  me  (November  7,  1867) : 

I  suppose  it  is  rather  superfluous  for  me,  as  one  of  the  public,  to 
thank  you  for  your  article  in  the  Fortnightly.  But  le  superflu  in  the 
matter  of  expression  is  chose  si  nbcessaire  to  us  women.  It  seems  to 
me  that  you  have  said  the  serious  things  most  needful  to  be  said  in  a 
good-humoured  way,  easy  for  everybody  to  read.  I  have  not  been  able 
to  find  Matthew  Arnold's  article  again,  but  I  remember  enough  of  it  to 
appreciate  the  force  of  your  criticism.  Only  on  one  point  I  am  unable 
to  see  as  you  do.  I  don't  know  how  far  my  impressions  have  been 
warped  by  reading  German,  but  I  have  regarded  the  word  "  Culture" 
as  a  verbal  equivalent  for  the  highest  mental  result  of  past  and  present 
influences.  Dictionary  meanings  are  liable  rapidly  to  fall  short  of 
usage.  But  I  am  not  maintaining  an  opinion  —  only  stating  an 
impression.  My  conscience  made  me  a  little  unhappy  after  I  had  been 
speaking  of  Browning  on  Sunday.  I  ought  to  have  spoken  with  more 
of  the  veneration  I  feel  for  him,  and  to  have  said  that  in  his  best  poems 
—  and  by  these  I  mean  a  large  number — I  do  not  find  him  unintel- 
ligible, but  only  peculiar  and  original.  Take  no  notice  of  this  letter,  or 
else  I  shall  feel  that  I  have  made  an  unwarrantable  inroad  on  your 
time. 

The  highly  characteristic  letter  of  January  15,  1870,  printed 
by  Cross  (iii.  103-4),  was  called  out  by  my  article  on  the 


144  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

"Positivist  Problem"  in  the  Fortnightly  Review  of  Novem- 
ber 1869.  In  her  letter  George  Eliot  admits  that  she  has  "an 
unreasonable  aversion  to  personal  statements" ;  she  "shrinks 
from  decided  'deliverances'  on  momentous  subjects,  from  the 
dread  of  coming  to  swear  by  my  own  deliverances,  and  sinking 
into  an  insistent  echo  of  oneself.  That  is  a  horrible  destiny 
—  and  one  cannot  help  seeing  that  many  of  the  most  power- 
ful men  fall  into  it."  All  this  is  not  very  clear  without  some 
explanation,  which  I  will  try  to  give.  In  reply  to  various 
criticisms  on  Comte  by  Professor  Huxley,  Matthew  Arnold, 
and  Fitzjames  Stephen,  I  attempted  to  state  the  general 
conditions  of  the  philosophical  and  religious  problems  as 
understood  by  Positivism.  At  that  date,  1869, 1  did  not  at 
all  accept  Comte's  idea  of  a  Religion  of  Humanity,  and  as  I 
was  believed  to  do  so,  being  a  colleague  of  Richard  Congreve, 
I  thought  it  right  to  state  that  fact  in  my  article.  This  was 
not  to  the  liking  of  Congreve  at  all,  who  would  have  preferred 
me  to  keep  silence  about  my  personal  opinions.  And  George 
Eliot,  in  her  sympathy  with  the  Congreves  and  her  morbid 
horror  of  confessions  of  all  kinds,  was  inclined  to  remonstrate 
with  me  for  making  any  reference  to  my  own  beliefs.  I  never 
saw,  nor  do  I  see,  any  ground  for  such  reticence,  but  much  the 
contrary,  as  leading  to  false  impressions.  Those  who  pro- 
mote unpopular  ideas  naturally  wish  for  nothing  but  whole 
beliefs  in  all  who  go  with  them.  But  I  repudiate  such  an 
attitude.  In  the  thirty-two  years  since  1869  I  have  come 
to  adopt  the  Religion  of  Humanity,  though  not  in  the  sense 
of  some  followers  of  Comte,  who  wish  to  treat  his  writings 
as  having  a  sort  of  verbal  inspiration.  I  have  studied  his 
system  now  for  fifty  years,  and  have  never  allowed  those 
whom  I  address  in  public  or  in  private  to  be  in  ignorance  from 
time  to  time  as  to  the  form  and  extent  of  my  adhesion.  And 
I  have  no  disposition  to  shrink  from  "personal  deliverances." 


REMINISCENCES   OF  GEORGE   ELIOT  145 

There  are  times  when  they  are  an  indispensable  guarantee 
of  good  faith. 

Nothing  in  the  shape  of  a  "service"  on  Positivist  lines  was 
attempted  in  the  Positivist  chapel  for  the  first  years  of  its 
foundation.  But  by  degrees  the  need  for  the  full  expression 
of  religious  feeling  in  public  and  in  private  made  itself  felt; 
and  as  our  own  children  grew  up  from  infancy,  their  mother 
was  called  upon  to  supply  some  equivalent  for  family  prayer. 
We  consulted  George  Eliot,  who,  with  her  deep  sympathy  with 
the  inmost  emotions  of  humanity,  had  so  great  a  gift  of  poetic 
expression.  The  letter  of  June  14,  1877  (given  by  Cross, 
Life,  iii.  311),  was  the  outcome  of  this  appeal.  She  there  said 
that  she  was  not  able  to  conribute  "to  the  construction  of 
a  liturgy,"  but  that  she  would  keep  the  subject  in  mind, 
and  "perhaps  it  might  prompt  some  perfectly  unfettered  pro- 
ductions." "O  may  I  join  the  choir  invisible"  had  been 
composed  in  1867,  and  was  published  with  "  Jubal"  in  1874; 
and  it  was  always  regarded  as  a  religious  embodiment  of  the 
Positivist  hope  of  subjective  immortality.  I  continued  to 
urge  George  Eliot  to  produce  other  pieces  in  prose  or  in  verse 
with  the  same  devotional  feeling. 

In  the  month  of  July  1877,  we  drove  over  from  Sutton  Place 
to  Witley,  and  there  had  long  talks  with  her  on  the  same 
subject  as  we  strolled  about  the  heather  and  the  pine  woods 
on  those  Surrey  heights.  And  I  sent  her  a  few  passages  of 
the  kind,  which  at  first  she  seemed  inclined  to  look  on  as  in- 
appropriate. On  consideration,  she  changed  her  mind,  and 
wrote  to  me,  December  26,  1877 : 

I  have  now  reread  more  than  once  the  Prayers  we  spoke  of,  and 
withdraw  my  remark  (made  under  reserve)  as  not  at  all  applicable. 
The  prayers  keep,  I  think,  within  the  due  limit  of  aspiration  and  do  not 
pass  into  beseeching. 

Certainly,  if  just  the  right  words  could  be  found  —  what  Vauvenargues 
calls  cette  splendeur  d"1  expression  gut  emporte  avec  elle  la  preuve  des 


146  MEMORIES  AND  THOUGHTS 

grandes  pensles  —  a  ritual  might  bring  more  illumination  than  sermons 
and  lectures. 

The  summer  of  1878  was  partly  occupied  by  George  Eliot 
in  writing  Theophrastus  Such  —  perhaps  the  only  one  of  her 
books  which  was  not  a  success.  I  have  a  guilty  conscience 
as  to  this  book,  as  I  may  have  contributed  to  induce  her  to 
write  it.  I  pointed  out  to  her  that  our  English  literature,  so 
rich  and  splendid  in  almost  every  field  of  poetry  and  prose, 
was  deficient  in  those  collections  of  Thoughts  which  the 
French  call  Pensees  —  pregnant  apothegms  embedded  in 
terse  and  memorable  phrase,  which  could  be  remembered 
like  fine  lines  of  poetry,  and  be  cited  as  readily  as  a  familiar 
proverb.  It  seemed  to  me  —  it  seems  to  me  still  —  that  she 
was  eminently  fitted  to  produce  such  a  book,  and  indeed  the 
Wit  and  Wisdom  of  George  Eliot  was  a  volume  culled  from 
her  writings.  But  Theophrastus  Such  —  where  the  queer 
title  came  from  I  know  not  —  was  not  an  adequate  expres- 
sion of  her  powers.  She  was  in  very  poor  health  all  the  time, 
and  George  Lewes  was  then  stricken  with  his  last  illness. 
His  death  delayed  publication,  and  when  she  read  Theo- 
phrastus in  revise,  she  had  serious  thoughts  of  suppressing  it 
(Cross,  iii.  352).  Would  she  had  done  so !  Her  life  was 
ebbing  away  when  it  was  actually  published. 

After  the  death  of  George  Lewes,  November  28,  1878,  we 
saw  little  of  George  Eliot  for  some  tune.  "Here  I  and 
sorrow  sit,"  she  wrote  in  her  diary,  January  i,  1879;  and  she 
devoted  herself  to  the  publication  of  his  posthumous  works, 
and  to  founding  a  studentship  in  his  memory,  to  be  called 
after  his  name.  This  necessitated  interviews  with  friends; 
and  in  the  spring  she  began  to  see  a  few  intimate  callers  again. 
She  wrote,  April  8,  1879 : 

DEAR  FRIENDS  — Will  you  come  to  see  me  some  day  ?  Though  I 
have  been  so  long  without  making  any  sign,  my  heart  has  been  con- 
tinually moved  with  gratitude  towards  you. 


REMINISCENCES   OF   GEORGE   ELIOT  147 

And  on  May  25,  1879,  she  writes : 

I  fell  ill  last  week  I  was  in  town,  and  was  obliged  to  leave  much 
undone,  else  I  should  have  written  to  you.  I  have  not  yet  recovered 
my  former  level,  but  I  hope  soon  to  do  so  under  country  influences. 
I  keep  by  me  two  letters,  and  sometimes  reread  them  when  I  feel  in  need 
of  a  moral  stimulus  which  is  half  rebuke,  half  encouragement. 

In  May  1879  George  Eliot  published  a  work  which  George 
Lewes  had  left  in  MS.  —  The  Study  of  Psychology,  its  Object, 
Scope,  and  Method.  It  was  an  elaborate  treatise  on  the 
relation  of  psychology  to  physiology,  and  treated  in  turn  the 
views  of  Comte,  Mill,  and  Herbert  Spencer.  Lewes,  without 
entirely  agreeing  with  any  of  these  theories,  tends  rather  to 
place  the  science  of  psychology  on  the  same  basis  as  Comte, 
whilst  denying  Comte's  doctrine  that  the  Introspective  method 
was  wholly  illusory.  George  Eliot  sent  me  a  presentation 
copy  of  this  book,  which  I  read  with  deep  interest.  And  I 
made  it  the  basis  of  a  paper  I  read  to  the  Metaphysical 
Society  on  June  10,  1879,  entitled  the  "Social  Factor  in 
Psychology,"  which  was  based  on  Lewes's  chapter  iv.  I 
submitted  the  paper  to  George  Eliot,  who  sent  me  the  follow- 
ing letter.  The  term  "Factor,"  by  the  way,  was  the  word 
used  as  headline  to  chapter  iv.  of  Lewes's  book : 

June  10,  '79. 

I  am  greatly  obliged  to  you  for  sending  me  the  paper  you  are  to  read 
to-day,  and  I  appreciate  it  the  more  highly  because  your  diligence  is  in 
contrast  with  the  general  sluggishness  of  readers  about  any  but  idle 
reading.  It  is  melancholy  enough  that  to  most  of  our  polite  readers 
the  Social  Factor  in  Psychology  would  be  a  dull  subject.  For  it  is 
certainly  no  conceit  of  ours  which  pronounces  it  to  be  the  supremely 
interesting  element  in  the  thinking  of  our  time. 

I  confess  the  word  Factor  has  always  been  distasteful  to  me  as  the 
name  for  the  grandest  of  forces.  If  it  were  only  mathematical  I  should 
not  mind,  but  it  has  many  other  associated  flavours  which  spoil  it  for 
me. 

Once  more — evermore — thanks.  —  Yours  most  truly, 

M.  E.  LEWES. 


148  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

I  trust  your  whole  household  is  blooming  again  now.  I  am  a  little 
better. 

The  fine  letter  of  April  19,  1880  (printed  by  Cross,  iii. 
388),  is  the  last  that  I  received.  It  was  written  a  few  weeks 
before  her  marriage  to  Mr.  John  Cross,  on  May  6,  and  a  few 
months  only  before  her  death.  In  it  her  warm  admiration 
for  Wordsworth  comes  out  very  strongly.  When  she  writes, 
"I  think  you  would  find  much  to  suit  your  purpose  in  'The 
Prelude'  such  as, 

There  is 

One  great  society  alone  on  earth  : 
The  noble  Living  and  the  noble  Dead," 

she  was  referring  to  my  "purpose,"  which  was  to  find  suitable 
passages  of  poetry  to  read  as  introductions  to  the  courses 
of  Positivist  lectures  which  were  then  being  given. 

It  will  be  noticed  how  largely  George  Eliot's  thoughts  and 
her  correspondence  with  myself  turned  upon  the  Positivist 
ideal  of  an  organised  Religion  of  Humanity.  This  was 
only  natural,  inasmuch  as  I  had  been  introduced  to  her  by 
Dr.  Richard  Congreve,  and  with  him  I  was,  during  our  in- 
timacy, one  of  the  leaders  of  the  Positivist  movement,  in 
which  she  deeply  sympathised.  We  were  all  anxious  to 
see  this  sympathy  develop  into  full  adhesion,  which  it  never 
did,  and  perhaps  was  never  likely  to  have  done.  When  a 
separate  group  was  formed,  which  met  in  Newton  Hall, 
George  Eliot  gave  to  its  funds  an  annual  subscription,  with- 
out withdrawing  that  which  she  had  contributed  to  an  earlier 
movement. 

But  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  she  was  entirely  wrapped 
up  in  deep  problems  of  metaphysics  and  ethics.  Far  from 
it !  She  was  the  most  courteous  and  considerate  of  friends, 
delighting  in  lively  conversation  and  good-natured  gossip. 
She  was  an  admirable  housewife,  and  very  proud  of  her 


REMINISCENCES   OF   GEORGE   ELIOT  149 

practical  accomplishments  as  a  sensible  and  kindly  mistress. 
She  interested  herself  much  in  finding  a  comfortable  situation 
for  any  young  woman  whom  she  judged  to  be  in  need  of  a 
friend.  We  have  letters  she  addressed  to  my  wife  recommend- 
ing a  girl  as  a  nurse.  "I  have  reason  to  believe,"  she  wrote, 
"that  her  habits  of  feeling  and  conduct  are  much  above  the 
average  in  young  women  offering  themselves  for  domestic 
service."  The  girl  in  question  was  leaving  her  place,  as 
George  Eliot  suspected,  owing  to  "a  cabal  against  Mary 
in  the  kitchen  as  'the  proud  house-maid.'  Her  underclothing 
was  thought  arrogantly  good,  and  her  bearing  towards  the 
men  had  a  little  too  much  dignity." 

Her  zeal  to  help  those  who  were  in  trouble  was  always  active. 
I  remember  once  seeing  her  spring  to  her  feet,  and  stretch- 
ing up  her  arms  with  that  passionate  gesture  she  sometimes 
would  display,  she  said,  "Yes!  the  day  will  come  when  it 
will  be  a  natural  instinct  to  stretch  out  a  hand  to  help  one  who 
needs  support,  as  automatic  and  irresistible  as  it  is  now  to 
use  our  hands  to  keep  ourselves  from  a  fall." 

There  was  much  of  Dinah  Morris  that  was  studied,  not 
from  Aunt  Samuel  Evans,  but  from  the  depths  of  the  heart 
of  George  Eliot  herself. 


THE    COMPLETE   RUSKIN 

1906 

THE  new  Library  Edition  of  Ruskin's  Works  is  now  before 
the  world ;  and  to  every  one  who  values  pure  English,  original 
genius,  and  many-sided  Art,  it  must  be  an  inexhaustible 
mine  of  study  and  delight.  Let  no  one  suppose  that  this 
collection  is  mere  reprint  —  "that  we  knew  it  all  before"; 
that  it  "gives  us  nothing  new."  It  gives  us  much  that  is 
new,  and  it  gives  us  the  old  under  new  forms.  Though  I 
am  myself  saturated  with  the  writings  of  John  Ruskin, 
whom  I  began  to  read  fifty-six  years  ago,  and  though  I  have 
read  every  one  of  his  books  as  they  came  out,  between  1849 
and  1899,  I  am  amazed  at  the  freshness  and  the  richness  of 
this  monumental  work.  What  miracles  of  labour,  thought, 
invention  are  crowded  in  these  thirty-seven  big  volumes ! 
What  microscopic  delicacy  of  observation !  What  subtlety 
of  hand !  What  glowing  enthusiasm  for  beauty,  truth, 
goodness !  It  is  the  perennial  fertility  of  the  writer,  the  en- 
cyclopaedic variety  of  the  ideas,  which  holds  me  spell-bound. 

Has  any  English  writer  poured  out  such  masses  of  preg- 
nant prose,  such  varied  thoughts  about  nature,  poetry,  art, 
society,  history,  religion  ?  We  pass  on  in  these  volumes  from 
mountains  to  rivers,  to  the  sea,  to  the  lakes ;  to  trees,  rocks, 
gems,  clouds,  sunsets  —  to  the  buildings  of  Athens,  of  Italy, 
of  France,  and  England  —  antique,  mediaeval,  renascent ; 
then  to  pictures,  Giotto  and  the  Primitives,  Bellini,  Tintoretto, 
Veronese;  to  Claude  and  Turner,  Prout  and  Millais;  to 

150 


THE   COMPLETE   RUSKIN  151 

Phidias,  Michael  Angelo,  Florentine  reliefs  and  medallions; 
and  then  to  the  Dismal  Science,  Social  Economy,  a  new 
Heaven  and  a  new  Earth.  It  is  an  encyclopaedia  of  homily, 
criticism,  analysis,  poetry,  and  passion.  I  am  not  the  man 
to  value  quantity  in  lieu  of  quality.  The  rare  bits  we  have 
of  Sappho,  Vauvenargues,  or  Lovelace,  are  worth  whole 
libraries.  But  when  I  count  up  the  contents  of  these  thirty- 
seven  volumes  of  Ruskin  to  contain  some  seven  or  eight 
millions  of  words,  I  confess  I  am  amazed  at  such  productive 
energy  and  inexhaustible  eloquence.  And  in  all  these  eight 
million  words  in  some  18,000  pages  there  is  not  one  page  that 
any  other  but  Ruskin  could  have  written. 

Though  I  am  fanatico  per  il  Giovanni  Ruskin,  as  the 
Venetians  say,  I  am  quite  alive  to  his  blunders,  his  nonsense, 
his  delirious  loves  and  hates.  Alas !  there  are  ignorance, 
babyism,  and  perversity  scattered  broadcast,  not  a  little 
extravagant  rhetoric,  and  some  cruel  injustice.  But  withal, 
what  geysers  of  noble  feeling !  What  an  Ithuriel  spear  to 
unmask  the  lurking  toads  of  falsehood  !  What  patience ! 
What  subtlety !  What  refinement  in  the  drawings !  What 
a  sense  of  a  pure  and  exquisite  spirit  pervades  these  "sermons 
in  stone,"  as  Carlyle  said  —  these  sermons  in  colours,  in 
drawings,  in  landscapes,  in  cathedrals,  in  the  eternal  hills, 
and  in  the  smoky  factories  of  crowded  cities !  These  thirty- 
seven  volumes  contain  enough  teaching  about  buildings  to 
equip  a  leading  authority  in  Architecture ;  enough  teaching 
about  Painting  to  found  a  school;  enough  material  to  base 
a  general  history  of  Art ;  enough  history  to  give  a  new  read- 
ing to  the  Middle  Ages;  enough  about  Poetry  to  make  a 
master  in  criticism ;  enough  of  Economy  to  create  a  special 
type  of  Socialism;  enough  verse  to  rival  an  average  minor 
poet ;  enough  of  perfect  prose  to  place  him  beside  Bacon  and 
Burke  for  his  inimitable  style. 


152  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

And  withal,  this  man  —  so  often  from  boyhood  prostrated 
by  physical  maladies,  and  then  by  despair  and  cerebral 
affliction ;  who  spent  years  and  years  in  travelling  over  Europe, 
in  lonely  meditation  on  mountains,  moors,  lakes,  and  sea; 
who  gave  up  days  and  nights  to  schools,  classes,  and  college 
lectures;  who  poured  out  his  thoughts  daily  to  unknown 
correspondents;  who  flung  away  the  whole  of  his  paternal 
inheritance  with  lavish,  and  indeed  reckless,  generosity  — 
found  time,  as  this  collection  shows  us,  to  produce  hundreds 
of  exquisite  studies  of  buildings,  landscapes,  pictures,  statues, 
and  natural  objects  —  from  Mont  Blanc  to  a  boulder  or  a 
tuft  of  grass — all  of  them  full  of  suggestion  to  the  artist  and 
the  naturalist,  unique  in  their  method,  and  some  few  so  subtle, 
so  lovely,  that  they  might  pass  at  a  first  glance  for  the  work 
of  Prout  or  of  Turner.  Truly,  it  is  only  now  when  we  see 
in  one  uniform  collection  these  eighty  different  works,  these 
1400  plates,  with  all  the  new  biographical  matter,  the  diaries, 
the  notes,  the  letters  which  serve  to  elucidate  and  illumine 
the  text  —  it  is  only  now  that  we  can  judge  how  largely 
bulks  in  the  glorious  Victorian  age  the  name  of  Ruskin  — 
whose  publications  from  1837  to  1900  exactly  cover  the  whole 
reign  of  the  late  Queen. 

I  said  there  is  a  great  deal  that  is  new  in  this  collection,  and 
what  is  old  is  given  under  new  forms  and  with  fresh  illus- 
trations. In  the  first  place,  there  are  more  than  100  drawings 
by  Ruskin  himself,  which  have  never  been  published.  All 
students  of  his  work  and  life  have  seen  many  of  the  originals  — 
wonderful  in  their  subtlety  and  precision,  now  and  then  really 
lovely  in  cloud  and  air  effects.  As  an  old  Alpinist,  I  make 
bold  to  say  that  no  other  man  has  ever  drawn  the  Alps  with 
absolute  truth,  not  even  Turner,  who  idealised  and  glorified 
the  mountains  as  he  did  the  rivers,  the  sea,  and  the  palaces 
of  Venice.  Ruskin  alone  of  draftsmen  has  drawn  the  Alps  as 


THE  COMPLETE   RUSKIN  153 

they  are — as  Tyndall  might  have  drawn  them  if  he  had  been 
an  artist,  as  Turner  might  have  drawn  them  if  he  had  been  a 
geologist.  And  in  this  collection  we  have  in  one  set  the  whole 
series,  singular  in  their  variety,  but  all  marked  with  the  same 
intense  patience  and  meticulous  pains.  Ruskin  often  de- 
clares that  he  could  only  copy  —  not  compose.  But  there 
are  some  of  his  larger  studies  of  distant  landscapes  in  France 
and  Switzerland  which  make  one  think  he  might  have  been  a 
real  painter,  if  he  had  not  chosen  to  be  a  Professor  of  universal 
Art  —  as  he  might  have  been  a  great  Social  Reformer,  if  he 
had  not  chosen  to  be  a  lonely  Prophet  in  the  wilderness. 

But  there  is  much  besides  the  drawings  which  is  new.  The 
nineteenth  volume  contains  no  fewer  than  three  unpublished 
Lectures,  which  together  give  the  essence  of  Ruskin  teaching 
on  his  central  idea :  the  dependence  of  all  great  Art  on  moral 
and  spiritual  enthusiasm.  It  was  a  noble  message,  to  which 
his  whole  life  was  devoted  —  in  some  ways,  a  true  message, 
however  much  he  misunderstood  the  hard  facts  of  history 
and  overrated  his  own  power  to  solve  one  of  the  most  com- 
plex problems  of  social  science.  Almost  every  volume  yet 
issued  contains  matter  more  or  less  new  even  to  diligent 
students  of  Ruskiniana.  And  apart  from  new  appendices, 
the  body  of  extracts  from  diaries,  letters,  memoranda,  and 
criticisms  give  life  and  meaning  to  the  essays  in  the  text. 
But  the  elaborate  introductions  to  each  volume,  mainly  the 
work  of  Mr.  E.  T.  Cook,  running  at  times  to  50  or  100  close 
pages,  describe  the  circumstances,  in  Ruskin's  long  and 
chequered  life,  under  which  each  book,  essay,  or  lecture  was 
produced.  This  biographical  commentary  is  at  times  a  reve- 
lation of  a  mind  —  one  of  the  most  marvellously  endowed 
and  certainly  one  of  the  most  vividly  interesting  in  the  whole 
of  the  nineteenth  century. 

I  am  a  Ruskinian  myself  —  but  with  a  difference.    There 


154  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

are  still  people  who  accept  the  pure  milk  of  the  Ruskinite 
word,  just  as  there  are  people  who  still  believe  in  Christian 
science  or  other  mysteries.  But  I  am  free  to  confess  that 
John  Ruskin,  in  his  long  life,  his  encyclopaedic  range  of  study, 
his  restless  search  for  new  ideas,  and  his  deluge  of  writing, 
maintained  continuously  for  sixty  years,  did  emit  much  wild 
guesswork,  some  arrant  nonsense  as  he  often  confessed,  and 
changed  his  point  of 'view  backwards  and  forwards,  as  passion, 
love,  indignation,  pity,  and  sorrow  moved  him.  What  man 
of  eager  spirit  and  piercing  inspiration,  who  for  sixty  years 
flung  himself  into  every  problem  of  art,  of  poetry,  of  morals, 
of  religion  —  even  of  science  —  could  avoid  inconsistencies, 
contradictions,  absurdities,  and  cruel  injustice  to  those  whom 
he  could  not  understand  ?  And  yet  I  find  fascination  in  all 
these  outbursts.  Nay,  more;  even  when  Ruskin  is  most 
wrong,  unjust,  intolerant,  I  find  food  for  reflection  and  care. 
His  view  may  be  one-sided,  but  it  is  always  the  view  of  a 
side  which  has  to  be  taken  into  account  —  a  view  which  can 
only  be  met  by  thoughts  which  force  us  down  to  the  very  roots 
of  moral,  social,  and  religious  questions. 

Take  as  an  example  the  famous  lecture  of  1870  on  Michael 
Angelo  and  Tintoret  (vol.  xxii.  75-110),  which  so  "fluttered 
the  Volscians"  of  the  Academies  and  the  art  critics.  As  the 
world  has  done  now  for  400  years  (the  cartoon  of  the  Pisan 
war  was  of  1506,  I  hold  by  thesupreme  greatness  of  Buonar- 
roti myself;  and  in  a  little  sketch  of  his  life  I  wrote  that 
"in  nobility  of  character,  in  sublimity  of  imagination,  and  in 
stupendous  achievements,  Michael  Angelo  may  rank  with  the 
greatest  sons  of  Humanity."  And  yet  I  find  much  that  is 
true,  a  great  deal  that  is  most  instructive,  in  Ruskin's  furious 
onslaught,  his  denunciations  of  "the  ostentatious  display 
of  strength  and  science."  How  true  is  his  wrath  with  all 
"stage  decoration,"  with  the  fatal  effect  of  the  gigantic 


THE   COMPLETE   RUSKIN  155 

powers  of  the  master,  whose  influence,  as  I  said  in  my  sketch, 
was  "disastrous  to  his  contemporary  followers."  Ruskin's 
tirade  against  Michael  Angelo  is  not  the  whole  truth  —  far 
from  it  —  but  it  has  truths  which  we  cannot  shut  out.  How 
fine  are  Ruskin's  "four  essentials  of  the  greatest  art":  i, 
faultless  workmanship ;  2,  serenity ;  3,  the  human  face  first ; 
4,  freedom  from  vice  and  pain.  The  famous  (or  infamous) 
lecture  on  Michael  Angelo  should  be  read  again  in  vol.  xxii., 
with  the  notes,  criticisms,  letters,  and  personal  reminiscences, 
for  the  first  time  included  in  this  series.  It  forms  a  typical 
example  of  Ruskin's  moods,  ideas,  and  limitations.  We 
find  him  therein  not  so  much  the  student  and  critic  of  art, 
as  the  perfervid  poet,  moralist,  preacher,  censor  morum,  and 
social  reformer. 

He  himself  regarded  his  lectures  as  the  most  careful  and 
important  part  of  his  life-work.  The  energy  and  labour  he 
gave  to  his  museum  and  his  art  collections  are  perfectly 
amazing.  His  first  professorship  at  Oxford  dated  from 
1870-78.  These  years  were  "the  busiest  period  of  his  busy 
life."  He  delivered  eleven  courses  of  lectures  at  Oxford. 
He  wrote  guide-books,  works  on  botany,  geology,  drawing; 
he  started  a  library  of  standard  literature;  he  catalogued 
and  annotated  his  art  collection;  he  founded  a  museum  at 
Sheffield;  he  engaged  in  a  series  of  social  experiments;  he 
founded  the  Company  of  St.  George;  he  wrote  incessantly 
to  newspapers;  he  issued  that  wonderful  medley  called 
Fors  Clavigera  month  by  month.  That  it  all  ended  in  a 
dreadful  brain  collapse  is  not  wonderful.  It  is  a  subject 
of  wonder  that  he  ever  recovered  the  lucidity  and  activity 
of  his  powers  at  all.  But  it  is  not  at  all  wonderful  if,  in  the 
course  of  production,  so  miscellaneous  and  so  passionate, 
he  was  hurried  into  many  false  judgments,  and  laid  down 
the  law  in  many  things,  of  which  he  could  have  no  really 


156  MEMORIES   AND    THOUGHTS 

scientific  knowledge.  And  yet  in  all  this  torrent  of  poetry, 
homily,  keen  vision,  and  rapturous  enthusiasm,  there  are 
for  some  of  us  imperishable  charms  and  exquisite  sympathies 
with  beauty  and  goodness. 

These  volumes  of  lectures,  read  with  the  mass  of  illustra- 
tions printed  and  pictorial,  the  notes  and  letters  made  public 
for  the  first  time  in  this  series,  display  the  man,  Ruskin,  in 
more  living  reality  than  do  his  greater  works.  They  explain 
much  that  is  latent  in  Modern  Painters  and  in  The  Stones  of 
Venice,  often  qualifying  and  correcting  his  earlier  judgments. 
All  through  his  long  life,  from  the  childhood  when  he  wrote 
poetry  at  nine,  till  he  finished  Pmterita  just  before  his  death, 
Ruskin  was  perpetually  learning,  as  Michael  Angelo  said  of 
himself,  ancora  impara.  His  theme  was  the  whole  world  of 
art,  of  nature,  of  history,  of  man,  of  earth,  of  sky :  and  none 
of  these  could  present  a  problem  which  he  did  not  burst 
to  solve.  Often,  as  we  know,  he  egregiously  failed  to  solve 
them.  But  how  suggestive,  how  fascinating,  often  how  won- 
derful were  his  guesses,  his  insight,  his  intense  earnestness  of 
soul! 

When  it  comes  to  me  to  find  myself  unable  to  work  and 
but  faintly  to  enjoy  sights  of  the  world  and  to  read  anything 
new,  as  I  saw  him  in  the  last  years  of  his  life,  in  his  study, 
softly  gazing  at  Coniston  Old  Man,  as  he  sat  in  a  bower  of 
roses,  and  turning  over  a  volume  of  pictures,  I  think  I  would 
wish  to  have  these  thirty-seven  volumes  of  the  Library  Rus- 
kin by  my  side,  and  gently  read  a  favourite  passage  here  and 
there,  or  turn  from  one  lovely  drawing  to  another,  trying  to 
recall  a  past  vision  of  beauty. 

It  is  the  inexhaustible  prodigality  of  this  collection  of 
thoughts  and  suggestions  which  ever  strikes  me  with  fresh 
wonder.  It  may  sound  a  wild  paradox,  but  I  ask  myself  if 
any  other  of  our  famous  men  of  genius,  since  Shakespeare, 


THE   COMPLETE   RUSKIN  157 

has  poured  out  such  a  world  of  original  fancies  about  every- 
thing visible  in  Nature,  or  in  the  handiwork  of  Man,  about 
the  literature  of  the  ancient  and  the  modern  poets,  about 
the  regeneration  of  society,  the  inner  meaning  of  religion, 
about  the  duties  of  man,  the  prerogatives  of  woman,  the 
training  of  children,  the  dignity  of  Labour  —  in  the  in- 
domitable search  of  that  Sangreal  of  the  true  knight  —  a  new 
Heaven  and  a  new  Earth. 

Mr.  Cook's  introductions  will  be  found  to  have  singular 
interest  for  all  lovers  of  the  Professor,  enriched  with  many 
private  letters  of  his,  entries  in  diaries,  personal  and  bio- 
graphical pictures  from  intimate  friends,  and  a  vivid  present- 
ment of  his  life  at  Coniston,  as  those  who  know  it  will  bear 
witness.  Surely  no  genius  of  the  Victorian  age,  hardly 
Carlyle  or  Tennyson,  has  ever  been  revealed  to  us  so  faith- 
fully and  so  lovingly,  in  every  detail  of  his  life,  and  mind, 
and  inmost  feeling.  And  assuredly  no  English  writer,  unless 
it  be  Shakespeare  himself,  has  ever  had  his  writings  edited, 
annotated,  and  illustrated  with  such  zeal,  labour,  and  ample 
knowledge. 

A  volume  which  will  have  special  interest  for  Ruskinian 
students  will  be  the  unpublished  lectures  given  at  Oxford  in 
1874  —  "The  ^Esthetic  and  Mathematic  Schools  of  Art  in 
Florence."  The  eight  lectures  were  thus  classified :  —  I. 
The  ^Esthetic  Schools  of  1300:  Arnolfo,  Cimabue,  Giotto 
(the  lecture  on  Giotto  being  incorporated  in  the  "Mornings 
in  Florence"  and  "The  Shepherd's  Tower").  II.  The 
Mathematic  Schools  of  1400  —  Brunelleschi,  Quercia,  Ghi- 
berti.  III.  The  Christian  Romantic  Schools  of  1500 — • 
Angelico,  Botticelli.  This  section  is  illustrated  by  twelve 
drawings  and  photogravures.  These  lectures  contained  some 
of  Ruskin's  most  vigorous  and  characteristic  thoughts.  He 
was  himself  pleased  with  them,  and  he  tells  us  that  the  lecture 


158  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

on  Arnolfo  was  considered  the  best  he  had  ever  given  in 
Oxford.  Twelve  lectures  were  written,  he  says,  in  six  weeks 
"from  hand  to  mouth."  They  were  delivered  to  a  great 
extent  extempore  from  notes.  And  for  that  reason  they  were 
not  published,  and  now  are  only  recovered  from  a  rough 
MS.,  with  the  assistance  of  the  notes  taken  by  Mr.  Wedder- 
burn  and  others.  Though  they  still  remain  fragmentary, 
this  only  adds  to  their  lifelike  form  and  effect.  As  we  read 
them  we  seem  to  hear  the  eager,  masterful,  irrepressible  tone 
of  the  speaker  as  he  poured  out  his  passionate  ideas  and 
glanced  from  grave  to  gay,  from  poetry  to  science,  from 
morals  to  religion. 

The  analysis  of  Florentine  Art  into  the  three  schools  — 
aesthetic,  mathematic,  and  romantic,  typified  respectively 
in  Giotto,  Michael  Angelo,  and  Botticelli  —  goes  down  to 
the  roots  of  Ruskin's  whole  conception  of  Art  and  of  Society, 
and  with  him  Art  and  Society  were  indissolubly  bound  to- 
gether. The  distinction  between  Imagination  and  Science, 
between  spiritual  ideals  and  accomplished  knowledge,  be- 
tween Angelico  and  Buonarroti,  is  profoundly  instructive, 
and  explains  much  in  Ruskin's  darkest  sayings,  his  rapture 
in  the  archaic  limitations  of  Cimabue,  and  his  indignation 
with  the  academic  megalomania  of  Michael  Angelo.  Nothing 
has  injured  Ruskin's  credit  with  students  of  Art  more  than 
his  violent  repudiation  of  Michael  Angelo  as  a  supreme  type. 
In  these  lectures  one  sees  more  clearly  what  Ruskin  meant, 
and  why,  recognising  as  he  does  the  unapproachable  power 
and  knowledge  of  the  mighty  sculptor,  he  turns  from  the  man 
who  defies  all  the  Christian  spiritualities  and  revolts  the 
Catholic  graces.  But  this  judgment  assumes  that  no  power 
and  no  knowledge,  no  tragic  intensity  or  inimitable  skill 
of  hand,  can  outweigh  a  want  of  spiritual  convictions.  At 
Oxford  this  assumption  thirty  years  ago  might  pass  unchal- 


THE   COMPLETE  RUSKIN  159 

lenged.  But  to  those  who  have  parted  with  the  spiritual 
convictions  of  Cimabue  and  Angelico,  the  tirades  of  the 
Professor  are  sounding  brass.  Half  of  Ruskin's  doctrines 
and  precepts  about  Art  rest  upon  his  own  very  fervid  and 
quite  personal  beliefs  as  to  things  social  and  religious.  And, 
as  his  beliefs  were  in  constant  flux,  and  not  quite  intelligible 
at  all  times,  his  Art  judgment  is  open  to  eternal  controversy. 
To  accept  him  as  final  arbiter  in  Art  we  must  accept  him  as 
infallible  master  in  theology  and  in  sociology.  The  judi- 
cious accept  him  as  an  inspiration,  but  not  as  a  judge.  And 
yet,  how  rich  in  suggestion  and  in  light  are  even  his  most 
daring  paradoxes  and  fantasies  ! 

Nothing  can  be  more  instructive  than  all  these  volumes 
contain  about  Giotto.  The  force  of  Ruskin's  artistic  in- 
stincts leads  him  direct  to  understand  the  great  Florentine 
who  united  profound  intellect  to  exquisite  sense  of  beauty. 
Buonarroti  had  the  intellect,  though  less  sane  and  less  lucid. 
Angelico  and  Botticelli  had  the  sense  of  beauty,  but  not 
the  brain  power.  At  first  sight  Giotto  would  not  seem  to 
satisfy  Ruskin's  ideal;  and  in  this  book  we  learn  that  he 
did  not  satisfy  it  at  first  sight.  But  at  last  Giotto  is  felt  to 
be  supreme  in  all  but  such  technical  knowledge  as  was  im- 
possible in  the  age  of  Dante.  As  I  pointed  out  in  1902, 
Ruskin  has  taught  us  to  "rank  Giotto  as  one  of  the  greatest 
forces  in  the  entire  history  of  art."  These  "Mornings  in 
Florence,"  these  views  of  the  Campanile,  justify  even  such 
language  of  admiration.  We  know  it  is  disputed  how  much 
Giotto  did  for  the  Campanile.  If  he  did  not  conceive  its 
form,  and  the  motifs  of  the  reliefs  round  its  base,  there  must 
have  been  two  Giottos  in  Florence. 

The  Complete  Works  of  John  Ruskin  will  ever  be  read,  as 
the  Sixth  Article  tells  us  the  Apocrypha  are  read,  for  example 
and  instruction,  yet  not  so  as  to  establish  any  doctrine.  They 


160  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

may  never  become  "canonical"  books,  and  yet  how  beautiful, 
how  wise,  how  illuminating  they  are  ! 

For  my  own  part,  I  am  free  to  confess  that  with  all  the 
means  I  have  had  for  understanding  Ruskin's  temperament 
and  methods,  I  have  gained  a  new  insight  from  the  material 
here  collected  for  the  first  time.  Although  I  knew  him  and 
heard  him  during  the  last  forty  years  of  his  life,  had  read,  as 
I  fondly  supposed,  all  that  he  had  ever  written,  and  had  my- 
self compiled  a  biography,  I  have  learnt  much  in  the  new 
volume. 

The  chief  interest  of  the  new  biographical  matter  lies  in 
the  fresh  light  thrown  by  it  on  the  very  painful  and  obscure 
part  of  Ruskin's  life  from  1874  to  1877.  ^  was  tne  period 
of  his  worst  illness  and  greatest  moral  trial.  As  his  editor 
tells  us,  "The  work  is  broken,  scattered,  incomplete,  and 
marked  by  irritability  of  tone."  He  truly  says  "the  fire 
now  becomes  fitful  and  feverish."  As  Carlyle  wrote,  a  little 
earlier:  "He  has  fallen  into  thick,  quiet  despair  again  on  the 
personal  question ;  and  meant  all  the  more  to  go  ahead  with 
fire  and  sword  upon  the  universal  one."  He  was  suffering 
personal  disappointment.  In  1875  he  wrote:  "The  woman 
I  hoped  would  have  been  my  wife  is  dying."  She  died  in 
May,  having  steadily  refused  to  see  him.  The  death  deeply 
affected  Ruskin's  mind  and  nature,  and  coloured  with  gloom 
and  mysticism  his  whole  after-career.  How  it  shook  and 
over-shadowed  his  mind,  how  strangely  it  worked  itself  into 
his  art  studies  and  his  inmost  musings  and  fantasies,  can  be 
learned,  I  think,  most  faithfully  and  at  first  hand  from  the 
letters  and  impressions  now  given  to  the  world. 

These  years  were  a  period  of  great  but  restless  activity. 
The  "great  fountain  of  sorrow,"  he  wrote,  "can  never  ebb 
away.  Meanwhile  I  live  in  the  outside  of  me  and  can  still 
work."  He  did  work  at  Oxford  Lectures,  the  Drawing 


THE    COMPLETE   RUSKIN  l6l 

School,  St.  George's  Company,  Fors  Clavigera,  month  by 
month,  the  Guide  to  Venice,  and  other  undertakings.  And 
we  now  learn  how  deeply  at  this  time  Ruskin  became  in- 
terested in  vague  forms  of  spiritualism  and  hypochondria, 
which  floated  about  his  mind,  giving  it  no  rest,  but  rather, 
as  he  said,  a  "quite  terrible  languor."  The  effects  of  this 
sorrow,  malady,  and  mysticism  combined,  more  or  less 
darkened  the  rest  of  his  life,  and  clouded  the  balance  of  his 
thoughts.  I  can  now  better  understand  the  tone  of  mind 
which  induced  his  denunciation  of  Darwin,  Mill,  Spencer, 
Miss  Cobbe,  Liberals,  and  Agnostics,  and  his  appeal  to  me, 
which  led  to  our  controversy  in  1876.  When  I  wrote  the  reply 
reprinted  in  my  Choice  0}  Books  I  had  no  idea  of  the  morbid 
condition  of  his  mind  or  of  the  causes  of  his  affliction,  though 
his  private  letters  to  me  betrayed  a  strange  excitability. 
Ruskin's  writing  after  the  year  1874  was  never  quite  the 
same  thing,  until  perhaps  in  the  calm  of  Praterita  (1885-89). 
We  may  enter  more  fully  into  his/state  of  mind  by  reading 
the  forty  pages  of  Introduction  that  Mr.  Cook  has  compiled. 
It  is  a  fascinating  chapter  in  the  psychology  of  genius.  The 
way  in  which  Saint  Ursula  and  Rose  La  Touche  are  blended 
into  a  sort  of  Dantesque  Vision  is  a  strange  episode  in  a 
many-sided  nature. 

The  elaborate  study  of  Giotto's  frescoes  at  Padua  belong 
to  1853  and  1860.  I  believe  no  sounder  or  more  illuminating 
art  criticism  was  ever  composed.  We  may  even  say  that 
truly  right  understanding  of  Italian  Primitive  Art  dates 
from  this  epoch,  for  Englishmen  at  least,  and  largely  by 
means  of  Ruskin.  Giotto,  we  now  know,  was  one  of  the 
profoundest  men  of  genius  whom  the  modern  world  produced. 
His  pre-eminence  was  obscured  to  our  grandfathers  by  the 
technical  ignorance  inevitable  in  his  age.  No  one  has  ever 
explained  so  well  as  Ruskin  why  Giotto's  artistic  imagination 

M 


162  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

should  in  no  respect  suffer  by  his  defects  in  manipulation  and 
scientific  training.  "Giotto  was  not  one  of  the  most  ac- 
complished painters,  but  he  was  one  of  the  greatest  men  who 
ever  lived,"  cries  our  Professor  in  his  enthusiasm.  These 
frescoes  do  not  teach  us  drawing,  but  they  expound  to  us  "the 
history  of  the  human  mind."  The  whole  power  of  Giotto's 
work  rests  on  "pure  Colour,  noble  Form,  noble  Thoughts." 
Giotto  made  no  attempt  to  give  complete  details,  nor  any 
laborious  realism.  His  was  "a  symbolical  art  which  ad- 
dresses the  imagination,  not  the  realist  art  which  supersedes 
it."  The  entire  series  of  these  studies  of  Giotto  forms  a 
masterly  type  of  fine  art  judgment  and  analysis. 

The  Guide  to  the  Academy  at  Venice  (of  1877)  and  St. 
Mark's  Rest  (of  1884)  have  been,  and  long  will  be,  the  hand- 
books of  innumerable  travellers.  But  the  copious  notes  of 
the  editors  and  the  plates  in  the  new  edition  will  force  most 
readers  of  the  original  manuals  to  look  at  them  again.  One 
of  the  most  interesting  studies  in  St.  Mark's  Rest  is  the  subtle 
analysis  of  Carpaccio's  works,  and  of  these  the  most  new 
and  ingenious  is  the  mystical  meaning  of  the  symbolical 
St.  Jerome.  Here  we  have  Ruskin  with  his  lynx-eye,  his 
subtlety,  his  love  of  symbolism,  and  his  mediaeval  passion. 
The  St.  Jerome  is  a  typical  example  of  the  way  in  which  the 
early  Venetians  could  blend  intense  realism,  the  most  pre- 
cise representation  of  minute  facts  as  they  saw  them,  with 
an  enthusiastic  idealism  of  spiritual  mysteries. 

As  we  read  and  enjoy  Ruskin's  rhapsodies  over  {he  faith- 
ful precision  with  which  Giotto  and  Carpaccio  saw  with  the 
mind's  eye  miracles  and  transfigurations  exactly  as  scripture 
and  legend  recorded  them,  and  when  he  raves  at  Raphael 
and  Michael  Angelo,  who  use  these  scriptures  and  legends 
merely  as  the  texts  whereon  they  could  dilate  on  their  own 
delight  in  all  forms  of  human  nature  and  of  earthly  grace 


THE   COMPLETE   RUSKIN  163 

—  careless  of  the  words  of  evangelist  or  father  —  the  ques- 
tion arises  in  the  mind :  Why  were  Raphael  and  Michael 
Angelo  and  the  men  of  the  New  Learning  bound  by  any 
literalism  of  Holy  Writ  ?  They  were  painters,  whose  business 
it  was  to  show  us  noble  men  and  lovely  women  in  picturesque 
and  moving  incidents.  They  were  not  the  handicraftsmen 
of  monks,  bidden  to  produce  illustrations  of  homilies  and 
sermons.  Michael  Angelo  did  not  take  the  Last  Judgment 
seriously  in  the  vein  of  the  Book  of  Revelation.  Nor  do 
we  to-day.  Nor,  for  that  matter,  did  Ruskin  himself. 
Giotto's  Bible  at  Padua  is  most  impressive  Art  —  but  it  is 
Primitive  Art.  Its  profound  interest  is  historical  —  not 
theological,  not  religious.  Or  if  it  teach  us  religion,  it  is 
the  religion  of  human  nature  and  of  human  genius. 


MAURICE   HEWLETT 

1906 

TEN  years  have  passed  since  a  new  writer  came  forward 
in  English  letters  with  a  vein  of  his  own  so  subtle  that,  for 
the  moment,  it  delighted  the  thoughtful  rather  than  the  casual 
reader,  who  is  slow  to  accept  any  unfamiliar  note.  But  in 
these  few  years  the  wider  public  has  learnt  that,  amongst 
the  two  or  three  living  prose  writers  of  the  first  rank  stands 
Maurice  Hewlett,  who  in  a  decade  has  given  them,  almost 
year  by  year,  a  series  of  romances  of  rare  imagination  and 
power.  In  the  quality  of  fantastic  idealism,  indeed,  he  re- 
mains alone  without  a  rival.  Now  that  novels  tend  to  be- 
come coloured  photographs  of  commonplace  life,  the  gift 
of  exuberant  imagination  is  as  precious  as  it  is  rare.  And 
when  to  inexhaustible  fancy  is  added  the  charm  of  curious 
felicity  of  form,  we  all  feel  that  something  has  been  done  to 
redeem  our  literature  of  to-day  from  the  charge  of  monotonous 
mediocrity  and  patient  copying  of  obvious  fact. 

Even  yet,  amidst  the  brilliant  success  of  these  romances, 
the  world  has  hardly  recognised  how  rare  a  gift  is  that  of 
Hewlett;  and  even  his  early  admirers  do  not  always  grasp 
the  sum  total  of  his  original  creations.  I  am  only  too  con- 
scious that  in  points  of  substance,  as  well  as  of  form,  I  am 
not  the  best  fitted  to  do  him  justice,  for  my  own  pursuits 
lead  me  to  historical  facts,  social  and  ethical  problems; 

164 


MAURICE  HEWLETT  165 

whilst  in  language,  my  taste  is  ever  for  the  plain  and  direct 
words,  such  as  the  average  man  can  grasp.  As  this  essay 
is  an  attempt  to  explain  Hewlett,  not  to  praise  him,  I  shall 
not  hesitate  to  say  squarely  where  I  cannot  go  with  him  in 
matters  of  ethic  and  in  mannerism  of  phrase  —  admitting 
that  prose  can  never  be  an  adequate  measure  of  any  poetry 
—  least  of  all  of  the  poetry  of  imagery,  fancy,  and  mysticism. 
But,  bound  over  to  prose  realism  as  I  am,  and  by  tempera- 
ment alien  to  all  innuendo,  euphuism,  and  forms  of  trope, 
I  am  carried  away  by  the  fantastic  magic  of  these  masques, 
fairy  tales,  and  chansons  de  geste,  whilst,  in  spite  of  my  cooler 
judgment,  I  am  charmed  by  the  artful  mosaic  of  word-paint- 
ing and  word-conundrums  with  which  each  page  dances 
and  scintillates. 

The  peculiar  note  of  fantastic  idealism  (in  which  I  make 
bold  to  say  Hewlett  has  no  living  "rival)  was  struck  in  his 
first  romance;  and  the  Forest  Lovers  (1898)  still  remains 
the  typical  Hewlett.  Later  books  show  historical  insight, 
brilliant  colour,  subtle  psychology,  a  wider  grasp  of  human 
life,  of  the  genius  of  various  epochs  and  races.  But  the  fan- 
tastic imagery,  the  sympathy  between  man  and  nature,  the 
wild  passion  of  adventure  —  all  glow  in  the  dissolving  fairy 
scenes  of  Morgraunt  Forest;  and  these  same  qualities  run 
through  the  whole  series  of  these  "Gestes."  This  is  their 
proper  title,  as  Ben  Jonson  says : 

The  gestes  of  kings,  great  captains,  and  sad  wars. 

Rather,  perhaps,  they  are  romances  of  adventure,  as  Chaucer 
has  it : 

The  halle  was  al  ful,  I  wis, 

Of  hem  that  writen  olde  gestes. 

Hewlett's  books,  even  his  historical  and  topographical 
pieces,  are  "olde  gestes"  —  that  is,  romances  in  prose  as  to 


166  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

form,  but  in  essence  poetry,  as  were  the  Decameron  or  the 
Morte  Darthur. 

These  "Gestes"  of  his  have  often  an  ideal  world  of  their 
own,  wholly  unconscious  of  time,  place,  or  reality.  They 
have  no  known  country,  take  place  in  no  recorded  age,  and 
are  not  bound  by  laws  of  material  nature  or  crude  common 
sense.  You  might  as  well  ask  when  and  where  the  Nibe- 
lungs  came  to  King  Etzel's  land — search  museums  of  archae- 
ology for  Cinderella's  slipper  —  and  show  us  in  ruins  the  cas- 
tle of  Uther  Pendragon.  The  overture  to  the  Forest  Lovers 
sounds  the  dominant  note.  "My  story,"  says  our  Trouba- 
dour, "will  take  you  into  times  and  spaces  alike  rude  and 
uncivil.  Blood  will  be  spilt,  virgins  suffer  distresses;  the 
horn  will  sound  through  woodland  glades;  dogs,  wolves, 
deer,  and  men,  Beauty  and  the  Beasts  will  tumble  each  other, 
seeking  life  or  death  with  their  proper  tools.  There  should 
be  mad  work,  not  devoid  of  entertainment."  Yes !  In  these 
tales  there  is  almost  always  "mad  work,"  but  it  is  never 
"devoid  of  entertainment." 

The  author  of  these  "masques,"  "extravaganzas," 
"visions,"  or  allegories  begs  us  "not  to  ask  him  what  it  all 
means,  or  what  the  moral  of  it  is."  "Leave  everything  to 
me,"  he  says.  So  we  do.  We  would  as  lief  ask  him  to  ex- 
plain Isoult  la  Desirous  as  we  would  ask  Spenser  what  were 
the  other  six  virtues,  and  what  became  of  them,  or  in  what 
order  of  Mammalia  the  Blatant  Beast  was  classed.  We  do 
not  cross-examine  poets.  As  Browning  said,  "God  knows 
what  I  meant !" 

The  Forest  Lovers  was  the  first  of  his  books  I  saw,  and  I 
still  think  it  his  true  type.  It  was  the  rapid  improvising  of 
an  omnivorous  reader  of  poems,  romances,  old  ballads; 
Provenjal  "Chansons";  "Fabliaux,"  French,  German, 
Italian;  Decameronic  "Novelle";  Orlandic  epics;  sagas, 


MAURICE   HEWLETT  167 

folk-songs;  Spenser's  Faerie  Queene,  and  Sidney's  Arcadia. 
It  was  more  mediaeval  than  Elizabethan;  more  Italian  than 
English ;  more  redolent  of  Malory  and  Ariosto  than  of  Spenser 
and  Tasso.  He  calls  out  in  his  first  lines  —  "blood  will  be 
spilt" ;  "there  will  be  mad  work" : 

Le  donne,  i  cavalier,  1'  arme,  gli  amori, 
Le  cortesie,  1'  audaci  imprese  io  canto. 

Our  Maurice  must  have  a  foreign  strain  in  his  pedigree. 
There  is  a  touch  of  the  diavolo  incarnato  in  this  Inglese 
Italianato,  with  his  "mad  work,"  his  taste  for  "bloody 
work." 

What  we  are  to  make  of  Pan  and  the  Young  Shepherd 
(of  the  same  year  1898),  I  will  not  venture  to  say.  This  is 
clearly  poetry,  a  masque,  an  extravaganza,  or  what  not  — 
something  made  out  of  echoes  of  Aristophanes  and  Ben 
Jonson.  As  we  see  it  as  a  play,  we  try  to  solve  its  mysteries, 
but  anything  less  dramatic  can  hardly  be  conceived  as  the 
book  stands.  The  Dramatis  Persona  are  the  great  god  Pan, 
who  talks  like  a  tipsy  tramp,  seven  immortal  daughters  of 
earth,  Aglae  and  her  sisters,  who  sing  Shelleyan  stanzas, 
shepherds  and  carters  with  Greek  names :  —  Geron,  Teucer, 
Mopsus,  who  talk  north-country  brogue  —  "  Gi'  us  a  snack, 
wenches ;  this  Piphany  Eve."  The  wench  calls  Pan  "  gaffer," 
"jail-bird,"  "rope-ripe  villain,"  "old  knave."  She  boxes  his 
ears  as  an  "old  gallus-bird,"  when  Pan  makes  rustic  love, 
but  she  is  ready  to  marry  him  at  last,  as  Parson  "Sir  Topas 
would  christianise  a  he-goat."  And  the  masque  ends  in  a 
carol  with  the  true  country-side  ring.  What  it  all  means, 
in  what  vein  of  ideas  this  medley  of  Hellenic  mythe,  plough- 
boy  roystering,  and  moorland  witchery  took  form  in  verse 
and  drama,  we  need  not  inquire.  The  old  shepherd  believes 
not  in  God,  but  "in  sheep,  and  a  bulging  stocking  'gainst  the 
rheumatics."  The  young  Shepherd  believes  in  the  seven 


1 68  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

sisters  —  trees  by  the  tarn  —  who  sing  o'  nights.     The  im- 
mortal and  arboreal  sisters  do  sing  thus : 

We  ride  at  our  will  o'er  the  bonny  wild  moor, 
Air  is  our  fee,  and  the  deep  brake  our  demesne. 

The  god  Pan  falls  in  love  "with  the  sinew  and  tan  of  a 
country  wench,"  who  cuffs  him  soundly.  And  the  yokels 
chaff  Mm  in  true  ale-house  style.  We  do  not  often  get  such  a 
medley  of  old  and  new,  ethereal  and  coarse ;  but  the  Renas- 
cence often  made  it  so,  and  loved  it  so.  Nor  can  I  deny  that 
the  thing  has  in  it  poetry,  humour,  learning,  mother  earth, 
and  human  nature. 

If  the  Forest  Lovers  and  Pan  have  no  possible  date  or 
local  colour,  this  cannot  be  said  of  the  later  tales,  some  of 
which,  like  the  Little  Novels  of  Italy,  Richard,  Queen's 
Quair,  and  the  Fool  Errant,  are  dated  to  a  year,  or  a  decade, 
and  have  very  vivid  and  exact  painting  both  of  place  and  race. 
One  of  the  interesting  gifts  of  this  writer  is  his  power  to  take 
us  first  into  a  fairy  world  full  of  goblins,  wonders,  and  mys- 
teries, and  then  to  whirl  us  into  scenes  alive  with  the  historical 
fidelity  of  Macaulay  or  Carlyle.  And  these  two  worlds  are 
never  far  apart.  The  vein  of  weird  fantasy  and  historical 
realism  runs  through  all  the  tales.  The  yokels  who  heckle 
the  god  Pan  over  their  ale  might  have  come  out  of  Thomas 
Hardy's  Wessex.  Brother  Bon-Accord  in  Morgraunt  tells 
another  Canterbury  Tale  in  perfect  good  faith.  When  Hew- 
lett leaves  fairies,  sorceresses,  and  knights-errant,  he  can  be 
as  grim  and  sanguinary  as  the  Nibelungen  Lied  or  the  Eliza- 
bethan dramatists.  He  calls  his  hearers  round  him,  crying : 

For  God's  sake,  let  us  sit  upon  the  ground 
And  tell  sad  stories  of  the  death  of  kings :  — 
How  some  have  been  deposed,  some  slain  in  war, 
Some  haunted  by  the  ghosts  they  have  deposed : 
Some  poison'd  by  their  wives,  some  sleeping  kill'd. 


MAURICE   HEWLETT  169 

The  fierce  passions  and  catastrophes  of  kings  and  queens, 
lords  and  ladies,  captains,  dare-devil  swordsmen,  lovely 
beggar-maids  whom  King  Cophetua  raises  to  a  throne  and 
generally  strangles  —  these  are  the  puppets  of  the  show. 
They  are  almost  all  from  the  south;  Italians,  Provenfals, 
or  French  —  usually  living  in  Italy  itself  — never  in  our  own 
England  in  any  modern  era.  Hewlett  is  ever  Inglese  italia- 
nato,  even  if  he  is  painting  an  English  man  or  woman. 

His  special  field  is  Italian  life  in  the  age  of  the  Renascence. 
He  has  painted  its  beauty,  its  intense  life,  its  poetry,  its  de- 
lirium of  lust  and  blood,  with  a  colour  and  a  glow  that  we 
hardly  get  from  the  laborious  learning  of  Symonds,  Sismondi, 
and  Burckhardt  all  together.  It  has  the  fascinating  vitality 
of  Cellini's  Memoirs.  I  take  the  Little  Novels  of  Italy  to  be 
as  true  a  tableau  of  the  quatrocento  as  an  oil  painting  by 
Pinturicchio  or  a  fresco  by  Signorelli.  Indeed,  I  hold  the 
"Madonna  of  the  Peach  Tree"  to  be  as  perfect  a  short  story 
as  we  have  had  in  our  time.  Its  local  colouring  charms  all 
who  love  Verona  and  have  lingered  in  the  moonlight  round 
the  tombs  of  the  Scalas,  or  chaffered  for  fruit  in  the  market- 
place. It  has  humour,  poetry,  pathos,  mystery,  imaginative 
history,  and  a  pure  humanity.  In  Hewlett's  gallery  of  por- 
traits I  remember  no  woman  so  sweet  as  the  lowly  Vanna 
Dardicozzo,  nor  do  I  know  a  more  finished  tale  in  contem- 
porary romance. 

Hewlett  knows  Italy,  and  its  story  from  Dante  down  to 
Tasso  and  Alfieri,  as  hardly  another  Englishman  since  Sy- 
monds does.  Each  Italian  city  and  province,  nay,  each  castle, 
cathedral,  or  palace,  seems  to  him  to  have  its  own  history, 
temperament,  patriotism.  Each  kindles  in  him  a  new 
dominant  note.  Verona,  Padua,  Romagna,  Pistoja,  Fer- 
rara,  are  to  him  as  different  as  Oxford,  York,  and  Edinburgh 
to  us.  Each  has  its  proper  record.  The  tyranny  of  the 


170  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

Despot,  the  intrigues  of  Monks,  the  affectation  of  Academics, 
the  ruffianism  of  the  Condottieri,  the  conceits  of  the  Sonnet- 
eer, the  pomp  of  the  Palace  —  furnish  in  turn  the  themes  of  a 
novel  which  may  be  far  too  gruesome  to  suit  the  lovers  in  the 
Decameron,  but  which  paints  to  the  life  the  times  of  Sforzas, 
Baglionis,  and  Borgias. 

There  was  so  much  of  historical  insight,  antiquarian  realism, 
in  Hewlett's  earlier  legends  that  it  was  inevitable  but  that  he 
should  set  himself  the  task  of  reproducing  an  elaborate  pic- 
ture of  a  past  epoch.  This  he  has  done  twice  on  a  great 
scale  —  with,  perhaps,  over-much  elaboration.  I  said  so 
much  about  Richard  Yea-and-Nay  when  it  first  appeared 
(Fortnightly  Review,  January  1901)  that  I  need  not  discuss 
it  again.  Five  years  have  only  deepened  my  conviction  that 
it  is  a  fine  and  original  romance  in  the  great  style.  It  is  a 
true  historical  picture  of  a  wonderfui  epoch,  with  archaeologi- 
cal realism,  with  learning  sound  and  wide,  and  insight  into 
the  nature  of  its  typical  men  and  women.  As  I  said,  "such 
historic  imagination,  such  glowing  colour,  such  crashing 
speed,  set  forth  in  such  pregnant  form,  carry  us  away."  It 
pictures  to  us  the  wild  times  and  the  wilder  heroes  of  the 
twelfth  century,  with  more  living  force  than  we  find  in  con- 
temporary chronicles,  or  in  "standard"  histories.  It  makes 
us  understand  the  glamour  which  for  seven  centuries  has 
hung  round  the  memory  of  the  Lion-Heart,  in  spite  of  the 
savage  vices  with  which  sober  history  has  stamped  him. 

I  need  not  enlarge  on  matters  wherein  I  could  not  follow 
the  method  employed  —  the  incessant  change  of  scene, 
country,  type  of  society,  manners,  and  religion ;  the  fantastic 
improbabilities  in  the  action;  the  bewildering  adventures 
of  knights-errant,  troubadours,  and  disguised  damsels.  Nor 
am  I  a  convert  to  all  the  archaisms,  conceits,  and  tropes 
which  make  some  passages  as  hard  to  read  as  a  chorus  of 


MAURICE  HEWLETT  171 

yEschylus.  Much  as  I  enjoy  quaint  old  words,  the  tooth- 
some phrase,  the  classicalisms,  mediaevalisms,  italianisms, 
which  bestar  the  page  (it  is  a  catching  trick  of  speech!),  I 
draw  the  line  at  such  Osricism  as  an  altar  lamp  "that  hinted 
at  the  Son  of  God,"  —  "flying  flags"  for  blushing;  the  "sun 
putting  the  air  to  the  sword,"  e.g.  a  hot  day.  Not  only  are 
these  forced  conundrums  of  speech  impertinent  in  a  long 
narrative,  but  they  disturb  the  attention  from  the  story,  and 
make  it  halt  and  limp. 

The  second  great  historical  novel,  The  Queen's  Quair,  has 
the  same  features  as  the  Richard  —  the  same  historical  elabo- 
ration, the  same  vivid  realism,  the  same  ingenuity  of  phrase. 
I  shall  say  less  about  it,  for  it  is  less  to  my  taste,  perhaps  be- 
cause Mary  Stuart  has  always  been  to  me  an  odious  minx, 
interesting  only  in  the  moment  of  her  death.  The  story  seems 
to  me  more  complicated,  crowded,  and  bewildering  than  that 
of  Richard  —  whilst  the  age  is  far  less  romantic,  and  the  per- 
sons far  more  coarse.  The  Hewlettisms  of  phrase,  if  rather 
less  profuse,  are  not  so  much  in  keeping  as  they  seem  in  the 
chronicle  of  Abbot  Milo.  The  story  of  the  Queen  of  Scots 
has  had  a  splendid  success  with  the  pubh'c,  and  if  I  find  her 
less  romantic  than  Richard  it  is  my  own  fault.  But  Hewlett 
is  at  his  best  in  the  Middle  Ages  and  the  Italian  Renascence. 
His  imagination  is  so  singularly  hot  and  fanciful  that  the 
banality  of  modern  life  repels  him.  For  that  reason  I  wish 
the  fascinating  adventures  of  the  Fool  Errant  had  befallen 
an  ancestor  of  Francis  Strelley  in  1521  rather  than  a  young 
squire  in  1721.  The  Georgian  age,  even  in  Italy,  had  but  a 
languid  turn  for  extravagant  peregrinations;  and  there  is 
incongruity  in  an  English  gentleman  of  the  times  of  Swift 
leading  the  life  of  Benvenuto  Cellini.  But  all  the  same,  no 
living  Englishman  could  have  painted  such  a  Fool  as  Francis 
or  such  a  Queen  as  Mary. 


172  MEMORIES  AND  THOUGHTS 

Now  that  I  am  in  a  warning  mood  I  would  advise  him  to 
stick  to  the  age  of  Plantagenets,  the  Cinquecentists,  and  the 
Humanists  —  to  indulge  his  genius  for  the  legendary  and 
fantastic  —  to  produce  "Fabliaux"  rather  than  histories. 
His  short  stories  are  perfect:  his  simpler  style  inimitable. 
In  romantic  colouring  of  Italian  Humanism  he  has  no  living 
rival  —  even  if  he  ever  had  an  equal.  He  should  choose  no 
canvas  of  an  encyclopaedic  scale  —  no  world-history,  no 
panorama  of  whole  epochs.  Some  day  he  will  give  us  the 
picture  of  an  adorable  woman,  who  is  neither  a  beggar-maid 
bred  in  a  hovel,  nor  a  high-born  dame  who  defies  all  the  de- 
cencies of  her  station.  It  has  become  almost  a  mannerism 
of  our  troubadour  that  his  heroines  are  starvelings  in  rags, 
who  follow  the  hero  about  like  lap-dogs,  and  are  never  happy 
till  their  lover  brutalises  them.  It  is  then  discovered  that 
these  Cinderellas  and  Griseldas  are  noble  ladies  ready  to  die 
for  "their  masters." 

His  theme  is  ever  spasmodic  Love  and  homicidal  Death 
as  conceived  in  the  Italian  Renascence.  It  is  high  time  to 
give  us  some  less  passionate  and  less  sanguinary  scenes.  The 
Hypnerotomachia  of  the  fifteenth  century  alarms  too  many 
readers  in  the  twentieth.  Mudie's  subscribers  must  have 
books  that  they  can  read  without  a  dictionary,  and  will  not 
ask  for  books  of  which  the  very  titles  puzzle  them.  They 
read  him  with  avidity,  as  it  is.  But  how  few  of  them  know 
that  English  literature  has  now  a  writer  who  may  yet  reach 
a  place  in  the  front  rank  of  that  illustrious  band  which  for 
five  centuries  has  carried  on  the  torch  from  age  to  age. 


IMPRESSIONS   OF   AMERICA 

1901 

IF  you  would  fully  grasp  all  that  the  geographical  condi- 
tions of  the  American  continent  imply,  you  should  cross  the 
Atlantic  in  its  winter  gales,  and  travel  far  to  the  west  with 
the  thermometer  sinking  down  towards  zero.  No  imagina- 
tion can  bring  home  to  you  this  vast  isolation  and  this  bound- 
less expanse,  until,  for  some  eight  days,  you  have  watched 
your  great  ship  as  it  ploughs  across  these  inexhaustible 
waters  at  the  rate  of  a  South-Eastern  Railway  train,  seeing 
nothing  but  waves,  clouds  and  sky,  so  that  the  lonely  mo- 
notony of  this  enormous  ocean  seems  to  try  the  nerves  at  last. 
And  then,  when  the  express  train  thunders  on,  day  and  night, 
across  the  Allegheny  mountains  to  the  west,  a  journey  that 
would  suffice  to  cross  Europe  just  brings  you  over  but  a 
moiety  of  the  space  that  divides  the  Atlantic  from  the  Pacific. 

Make  this  voyage  and  try  to  conceive  what  it  must  mean 
to  the  ordinary  emigrant  rather  than  to  the  luxurious  tourist, 
and  you  will  begin  to  understand  how  far  outside  of  Europe 
is  this  American  continent;  how  completely  it  offers  a  new 
life,  a  fresh  start,  a  world  detached,  on  a  virgin  soil  unen- 
cumbered with  our  antique  civilisation  and  its  burdens. 
Again,  make  this  westward  journey  by  rail,  and  watch  how 
the  emigrant  has  to  make  it,  and  you  feel  an  awakening  sense 
of  the  boundless  area,  the  inexhaustible  resources,  the  in- 
finite varieties  of  the  transatlantic  hemisphere,  which  for 


174  MEMORIES  AND    THOUGHTS 

practical  purposes  has  only  just  begun  to  take  its  place  in 
these  latter  days  in  the  secular  life  of  humanity  as  a  whole. 

America  is  detached  from  Europe  by  a  gulf  which,  how- 
ever trivial  it  seems  to  the  summer  tourist  in  his  luxurious 
state-room  and  saloon,  has  been  a  veritable  "middle  passage" 
to  millions  and  millions  of  American  citizens  and  their 
parents  —  a  gulf  which  the  "Upper  Ten  thousand"  cross 
backwards  and  forwards  as  we  go  to  Paris  or  Rome,  but 
which  seventy  millions  of  American  citizens  never  cross  or 
recross.  To  them  our  Europe  is  a  far-away  world,  of  which 
but  faint  echoes  reach  them,  which  they  will  never  see  more, 
which  can  never  directly  touch  their  lives;  whilst  the  vast 
expanses  and  inexhaustible  resources  of  their  own  continent 
are  brought  home  to  them,  day  by  day,  in  a  thousand  prac- 
tical and  visible  ways. 

And  yet  the  paradox  strikes  my  mind  that  American  life, 
such  as  a  passing  visitor  finds  it  in  the  great  cities,  is  essen- 
tially the  same  as  our  own ;  that,  in  spite  of  the  geographical 
isolation  and  the  physical  conditions,  the  citizen  of  the  United 
States  is  at  heart  much  the  same  man  as  the  subject  of  King 
Edward;  that  life  is  the  same,  mutatis  mutandis]  that  the 
intellectual,  social,  and  religious  tone  is  nearly  identical ;  that 
the  proverbial  differences  we  hear  of  have  been  absurdly 
exaggerated.  Put  aside  trivial  peculiarities  of  language, 
manners,  habit  or  climate,  admit  a  certain  air  of  Paris  in 
New  York,  and  a  certain  European  tone  in  Washington  — 
and  these  only  concern  small  sections  in  both  cities  —  for 
my  part  I  noticed  no  radical  difference  between  Americans 
and  Englishmen.  Physically,  they  are  the  same  race,  with 
the  same  strength,  energy,  and  beauty ;  except  for  superficial 
things,  they  live  the  same  lives,  have  the  same  interests,  aims, 
and  standards  of  opinion ;  and  in  literature,  science,  art  and 
philosophy,  the  Atlantic  is  no  more  a  barrier  between  our 


IMPRESSIONS   OF  AMERICA  175 

two  peoples  than  is  St.  George's  Channel  or  the  Tweed  in  the 
British  Isles.  The  citizen  of  the  United  States  seems  to  me 
very  much  what  the  citizen  of  the  United  Kingdom  is  —  only 
rather  more  accentuated.  The  differences  are  really  on  the 
surface,  or  in  mere  form. 

I  do  not  forget  all  that  we  are  told  about  the  vast  propor- 
tion of  non- American  people  in  the  United  States :  that  New 
York  and  Chicago  contain  "more  Germans  than  any  city 
but  Berlin,  more  Irishmen  than  Dublin,  more  Italians  than 
Venice,  more  Scandinavians  than  Stockholm,  and"  (they 
sometimes  add)  "more  sinners  than  any  place  on  earth." 
Statistics  give  us  the  facts,  and  of  course  there  is  no  sort  of 
doubt  about  the  immense  degree  in  which  the  States  are 
peopled  by  a  race  of  foreign  birth  or  origin.  In  the  eastern 
slums  of  New  York,  in  the  yards  and  docks  of  the  great  cities, 
one  sees  them  by  myriads :  Germans,  Irish,  Italians,  Swedes, 
Russians,  Orientals,  and  negroes.  But  those  who  direct 
the  State,  who  administer  the  cities,  control  the  legislatures, 
the  financiers,  merchants,  professors,  journalists,  men  of 
letters  —  those  whom  I  met  in  society  —  were  nearly  all  of 
American  birth,  and  all  of  marked  American  type.  I  rarely 
heard  a  foreign  accent  or  saw  a  foreign  countenance.  The 
American  world  is  practically  "run"  by  genuine  Americans. 
Foreigners  are  more  en  evidence  in  London  or  Manchester, 
it  seemed  to  me,  than  they  are  in  New  York,  Philadelphia, 
or  Boston.  The  reason  is  that  foreigners  are  not  so  easily 
assimilated  here. 

It  is  my  own  impression  (of  course,  I  can  pretend  to  nothing 
but  an  impression  at  a  first  glance)  that  in  spite  of  the  vast 
proportion  of  immigrant  population,  the  language,  character, 
habits  of  native  Americans  rapidly  absorb  and  incorporate 
all  foreign  elements.  In  the  second  or  third  generation  all 
exotic  differences  are  merged.  In  one  sense  the  United 


1 76  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

States  seemed  to  me  more  homogeneous  than  the  United 
Kingdom.  There  is  no  State,  city,  or  large  area  which  has 
a  distinct  race  of  its  own,  as  Ireland,  Wales,  and  Scotland 
have,  and  of  course  there  is  nothing  analogous  to  the  diverse 
nationalities  of  the  British  Empire.  From  Long  Island  to 
San  Francisco,  from  Florida  Bay  to  Vancouver's  Island,  there 
is  one  dominant  race  and  civilisation,  one  language,  one 
type  of  law,  one  sense  of  nationality.  That  race,  that  na- 
tionality, is  American  to  the  core.  And  the  consciousness 
of  its  vast  expansion  and  collective  force  fills  the  mind  of 
American  citizens,  as  nothing  can  do  to  this  degree  in  the 
nations  of  western  Europe. 

Vast  expansion,  collective  force,  inexhaustible  energy  — 
these  are  the  impressions  forced  on  the  visitor,  beyond  all 
that  he  could  have  conceived  or  had  expected  to  find.  It  is 
borne  in  on  him  that  he  has  come,  not  so  much  to  another 
nation  as  to  a  new  continent,  inhabited  by  a  people  soon  to 
be  more  numerous  than  any  two  of  the  greater  nations  of 
western  Europe,  having  within  their  own  limits  every  climate 
and  product  between  the  Tropics  and  the  Pole,  with  natural 
resources  superior  to  those  of  all  Europe  put  together,  and 
an  almost  boundless  field  for  development  in  the  future. 
Europeans,  being  in  touch  with  the  eastern  seaboard,  do 
not  easily  grasp  the  idea  how  fast  the  population,  wealth, 
and  energy  of  the  United  States  are  ever  sweeping  to  the 
west.  It  is  an  amusing  "catch"  when  one  is  told  that  the 
central  point  of  population  of  the  United  States  is  now  at 
Indianapolis,  nearly  a  thousand  miles  west  of  Boston ;  that 
the  geographical  centre  of  the  United  States  since  the  ac- 
quisition of  Alaska  is  now  west  of  San  Francisco.  It  is 
[1901]  long  since  an  Eastern  State  man  has  been  elected 
President,  and  we  are  told  that  there  will  never  be  another. 
The  political  centre  of  gravity  is  now  said  to  lie  in  the  Missis- 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  AMERICA  177 

sippi  Valley.  And  the  destined  metropolis  of  the  United 
States  will  soon  be  Chicago  or  St.  Louis.  Chicago,  with  its 
unlimited  area  for  expansion  north,  west,  and  south,  and  its 
marvellous  site  on  the  vast  inland  seas,  may  prove  to  be,  in  a 
generation,  the  largest,  richest,  and  most  powerful  city  in  the 
world. 

CHICAGO 

Chicago,  to  which  I  was  invited  to  give  the  annual  address 
in  commemoration  of  George  Washington,  was  the  first  city 
in  the  United  States  in  which  I  sojourned ;  and  it  naturally 
interested  me  much.  It  did  so,  amongst  other  things,  be- 
cause I  am  older  than  the  city  itself.  At  my  own  birth,  I 
learn,  it  was  a  village  in  a  swamp  with  100  inhabitants,  and 
I  heard  of  a  man  now  living  who  has  killed  bear  on  the 
site  of  the  Central  Lake  Park.  Although  it  is  said  to  extend 
over  a  space  of  some  thirty  miles,  it  has  vast  edifices  of  twenty 
stories,  and  its  banks,  offices,  public  buildings  and  halls 
show  a  lavish  profusion  of  marbles,  granite,  and  carved  stone. 
It  is  not  a  beautiful  city,  though  it  has  great  natural  oppor- 
tunities on  its  level  lake  shore ;  and  perhaps,  as  whole  streets 
have  been  bodily  raised  upwards  by  machinery  many  feet, 
it  is  conceivable  that  it  may  be  made  a  fine  city  in  time. 

Chicago  struck  me  as  being  somewhat  unfairly  condemned 
as  devoted  to  nothing  but  Mammon  and  pork.  Certainly, 
during  my  visit,  I  heard  of  nothing  but  the  progress  of  edu- 
cation, university  endowments,  people's  institutes,  libraries, 
museums,  art  schools,  workmen's  model  dwellings  and  farms, 
literary  culture,  and  scientific  foundations.  I  saw  there  one 
of  the  best  equipped  and  most  vigorous  art  schools  in  America, 
one  of  the  best  Toynbee  Hall  settlements  in  the  world,  and 
perhaps  the  most  rapidly  developed  university  in  existence. 
My  friends  of  the  Union  League,  themselves  men  of  business 


178  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

proud  of  their  city,  strongly  urged  me  to  dispense  with  the 
usual  visit  to  the  grain  elevators  and  the  stockyards,  where 
hogs  and  oxen  are  slaughtered  by  millions  and  consigned  to 
Europe,  but  to  spend  my  time  in  inspecting  libraries,  schools, 
and  museums.  No  city  in  the  world  can  show  such  enormous 
endowments  for  educational,  scientific,  and  charitable  pur- 
poses lavished  within  ten  years,  and  still  unlimited  in  supply. 

In  a  country  like  the  United  States,  where  every  principal 
city  is  struggling  to  become  the  first,  and  every  second-rate 
town  is  struggling  to  reach  the  front  rank,  there  is  much 
jealousy  between  the  competing  cities.  And  Chicago,  the 
youngest  of  the  great  cities  of  the  world,  is  the  butt  of  the 
wits  of  New  York  and  Washington.  I  was,  no  doubt, 
fortunate  in  the  conditions  under  which  I  saw  it,  but  the  im- 
pression left  on  my  mind  was  that  the  citizens  of  Chicago 
were  bringing  their  extraordinary  enterprise  to  bear  quite 
as  much  on  social,  intellectual,  and  artistic  interests  as  they 
confessedly  do  on  grain,  ham,  steel,  and  lumber.  They  will 
have  to  dispel  and  outlive  the  evil  character  their  food 
"rings"  and  syndicates  have  acquired,  if  they  are  to  hold  their 
own  in  the  future  of  civilisation.  For  the  manifest  destiny 
of  Chicago  is  to  be  the  heart  of  the  American  continent. 

For  energy,  audacity,  and  enterprise,  the  Chicago  people 
are  famous  even  in  the  Western  States  of  America.  "When 
I  come  to  London,"  said  a  leading  man  of  business,  "I  find 
your  bankers  and  merchants  stroll  into  their  offices  between 
ten  and  eleven  in  the  morning.  I  am  at  my  desk  at  seven," 
said  he,  "and  by  noon  I  have  completed  fifty  transactions 
by  telephone."  Telegrams,  in  fact,  are  no  longer  up  to 
date  in  the  United  States,  and  few  busy  men  ever  use  a  pen 
except  to  sign  their  names.  They  do  not  even  dictate  their 
letters.  They  speak  into  a  phonograph,  and  have  their 
message  type-written  from  the  instrument.  Life  in  the  States 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  AMERICA  179 

is  one  perpetual  whirl  of  telephones,  telesemes,  phonographs, 
electric  bells,  motors,  lifts,  and  automatic  instruments.  To 
me  such  a  life  would  not  be  worth  living,  and  the  mere  sight 
of  it  is  incompatible  with  continuous  thought.  But  business 
seems  to  be  done  in  that  way.  And  I  did  not  learn  that  the 
percentage  of  suicide  or  insanity  was  very  seriously  increased 
by  these  truly  maddening  inventions. 

No  competent  observer  can  doubt  that  in  wealth,  manu- 
factures, material  progress  of  all  kinds,  the  United  States, 
in  a  very  few  years,  must  hold  the  first  place  in  the  world 
without  dispute.  Its  population  will  soon  double  that  of  any 
nation  of  western  Europe.  That  population  will  have  an 
education  second  only  to  that  of  Germany  and  Switzerland, 
and  superior  to  that  of  any  other  European  nation.  The 
natural  resources  of  their  country  exceed  those  of  all  Europe 
put  together.  Their  energy  exceeds  that  of  the  British; 
their  intelligence  is  hardly  second  to  that  of  Germany  and 
France.  And  their  social  and  political  system  is  more  favour- 
able to  material  development  than  any  other  society  ever 
devised  by  man.  This  extraordinary  combination  of  national 
and  social  qualities,  with  vast  numbers  and  unbounded 
physical  resources,  cannot  fail  to  give  America  the  undis- 
puted lead  in  all  material  things.  It  is  a  curious  instance  of 
the  power  of  national  egotism  that  Europe  fails  to  grasp  this 
truth  —  that  Germans,  with  their  wretchedly  poor  country, 
narrow  seaboard,  and  scanty  rivers,  ports,  and  minerals,  still 
aspire  to  the  first  place ;  that  Frenchmen  fail  to  see  how  their 
passion  for  art,  rest,  and  home  has  handicapped  them  in  the 
race  for  supremacy  in  things  material ;  that  Britons,  in  their 
narrow  island  and  their  comfortable  traditions,  will  not 
recognise  that  the  industrial  prizes  must  ultimately  go  to 
numbers,  national  unity,  physical  resources,  geographical 
opportunities,  trained  intelligence,  and  restless  ambition. 


180  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

Enormous  material  triumphs  obviously  have  their  moral 
and  intellectual  evils.  And  one  is  constantly  led  to  fancy 
some  parallels  between  modern  America  and  old  Rome  at 
the  close  of  the  Republic  and  the  rise  of  the  Empire.  The 
sudden  possession  of  vast  areas  to  be  exploited,  the  control 
of  enormous  masses  of  skilled  workers,  the  rapid  acquisition 
of  all  the  resources  the  world  can  offer  by  men  bred  in  hard 
work  and  having  unbounded  energy  and  ambition  —  these 
are  common  to  the  Rome  of  Cicero  and  Julius,  and  to  the 
United  States  of  Grover  Cleveland  and  William  M'Kinley. 
Paradox  as  it  sounds,  I  was  constantly  reminded  of  the  old 
stories  of  Crassus,  Lucullus,  and  the  Caesars  when  I  saw  the 
lavish  profusion  of  marbles,  carvings,  and  mosaics  in  public 
and  private  buildings  —  so  many  a  porticus  metata  decempedis 
—  the  wanton  luxury  which  seems  inspired  by  a  mania  of 
rapidly  squandering  the  riches  that  have  been  so  rapidly 
acquired.  Wealth  is  acquired  in  Europe  by  slow  stages  and 
usually  in  more  than  one  generation.  In  America  it  comes 
in  a  few  years  to  men  whose  boyhood  was  usually  passed 
in  hardship  or  severe  effort.  The  sudden  mastery  of  enor- 
mous sources  of  power  is  the  peculiar  fact  of  American 
society  —  and  its  special  form  of  temptation.  It  is  often 
said,  "  From  shirt  sleeves  to  shirt-sleeves  needs  only  three 
generations."  Such  power  is  not  seldom  used  well,  gen- 
erously, and  with  public  spirit.  Very  often  it  is  used  ill, 
with  vulgarity,  cruelty,  folly,  and  selfishness.  In  any  case,  it 
knows  nothing  of  the  social  conventions,  habits,  and  tradi- 
tions which,  for  good  and  for  evil,  control  the  use  of  wealth 
in  modern  Europe. 

DEMOCRACY 

The  characteristic  note  of  the  United  States  is  to  be  found 
in  this  freedom  of  the  individual  —  the  carriers  ouverte  aux 


IMPRESSIONS    OF  AMERICA  l8l 

talents  —  in  a  sense  which  is  unknown  to  Europeans  and  can 
hardly  be  conceived  by  them.  Every  one  of  these  seventy 
millions  —  at  least  of  whites  —  has  an  "equal  chance"  in 
life.  A  first-rate  education,  comfort,  and  " betterment"  are 
within  the  reach  of  every  youth  and  girl  of  average  capacity 
and  industry.  Most  of  the  men  eminent  in  business,  politics, 
or  literature  began  life  by  "  teaching  school."  Every  messen- 
ger boy  or  machine-hand  may  be  an  embryo  President  of  the 
United  States,  of  a  railroad,  or  a  bank,  a  powerful  journalist, 
or  a  millionaire.  Every  lad  seems  conscious  that  this  is  open 
to  him,  and  most  of  them  live  and  work  as  if  they  meant  to 
try  for  this  end.  Every  girl  at  a  type-desk  or  a  telegraph  office 
may  live  to  reside  in  Fifth  Avenue,  or  —  who  knows  ?  —  in 
the  White  House.  And  the  ease  with  which  the  youth  and 
girl  adapt  themselves  to  new  careers  and  wider  functions  is 
one  of  the  wonders  of  American  life.  Europe,  even  France,  is 
organised  more  or  less  on  the  caste  system,  where  only  the 
rare  exceptions  pass  from  one  social  rank  or  office  to  another 
from  time  to  time.  America  is  the  only  land  on  earth  where 
caste  has  never  had  a  footing,  nor  has  left  a  trace.  But  this 
(be  it  said)  is  true  of  the  white  race  alone. 

Rare  as  the  prizes  are,  though  the  chances  are  millions  to 
one  against  the  winning,  the  possibility  is  ever  before  man, 
woman,  and  child.  And  this  infinitesimal  chance,  this  not 
absolutely  impossible  hope,  colours  life  in  the  New  World; 
so  that,  in  spite  of  all  the  slum  horrors  of  New  York  and 
Chicago,  and  all  the  industrial  pressure  of  this  furious  com- 
petition, populist  agitation,  and  anarchist  outbreaks,  the  pro- 
letariat of  Europe  has  good  ground  for  looking  to  the  United 
States  as  the  paradise  of  Labour.  New  York,  San  Fran- 
cisco, Chicago,  and  Philadelphia  may  swarm  with  the  disin- 
herited of  other  continents,  but  the  standard  of  material 
well-being  in  the  United  States  for  highly-trained  artisans 


182  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

reaches  a  far  higher  point  than  has  ever  yet  been  attained  by 
the  labouring  mass  of  civilised  men. 

The  ease  with  which  men  can  pass  from  one  locality  to 
another,  from  one  climate  to  another,  from  one  business  to 
another,  the  entire  absence  of  social  barriers  or  class  distinc- 
tions, the  abundant  means  of  technical  and  scientific  education, 
leave  it  open  to  each  man  and  woman  to  make  their  own  lives. 
The  vast  continent,  with  its  varieties  of  climate  and  soil, 
produces  almost  everything  except  champagne,  diamonds, 
and  ancient  buildings.  With  New  York  and  San  Francisco, 
the  two  grandest  natural  ports  in  the  world,  open  to  the  ships 
of  the  Atlantic  and  the  Pacific,  with  Chicago  or  St.  Louis  as 
the  centre  of  traffic,  the  clearing-house  of  this  boundless 
trade,  the  material  prosperity  of  the  American  continent  must 
reach  in  the  twentieth  century  a  height  of  which  the  nineteen 
centuries  before  it  never  dreamed.  When  the  Englishman 
talks  about  the  evils  of  Protection  and  the  benefits  of  Free 
Trade,  he  is  reminded  that  the  United  States  occupies  a  con- 
tinent self-sufficing,  except  for  a  few  luxuries,  which  has  its 
own  Free  Trade  on  a  gigantic  scale,  over  an  area  far  larger 
than  all  Western  Europe.  It  seems  impertinent  to  lecture 
men  about  their  neglect  of  Free  Trade,  when  in  their  own 
country  they  can  travel  in  every  direction  thousands 
of  miles  without  ever  meeting  a  Customs  frontier.  They 
insist  that  they  are  the  greatest  Free  Trade  people  on 
earth. 

Of  course,  for  the  American  citizen  and  the  thoughtful 
visitor,  the  real  problem  is  whether  this  vast  prosperity,  this 
boundless  future  of  theirs,  rests  upon  an  equal  expansion  in 
the  social,  intellectual,  and  moral  sphere.  They  would  be 
bold  critics  who  should  maintain  it,  and  few  thinking  men 
in  the  United  States  do  so  without  qualifications  and  mis- 
givings. As  to  the  universal  diffusion  of  education,  the  energy 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  AMERICA  183 

which  is  thrown  into  it,  and  the  wealth  lavished  on  it  from 
sources  public  and  private,  no  doubt  can  exist.  Universities, 
richly  endowed,  exist  by  scores,  colleges  by  many  hundreds, 
in  every  part  of  the  Union.  Art  schools,  training  colleges, 
technical  schools,  laboratories,  polytechnics,  and  libraries 
are  met  with  in  every  thriving  town.  The  impression  left  on 
my  mind  is  that  the  whole  educational  machinery  must  be  at 
least  tenfold  that  of  the  United  Kingdom.  That  open  to 
women  must  be  at  least  twentyfold  greater  than  with  us,  and 
it  is  rapidly  advancing  to  meet  that  of  men,  both  in  numbers 
and  in  quality.  Nor  can  I  resist  the  impression  that  the 
education  in  all  grades  is  less  perfunctory,  amateurish,  and 
casual  than  is  too  often  our  own  experience  at  home.  The 
libraries,  laboratories,  museums,  and  gymnasia  of  the  best 
universities  and  colleges  are  models  of  equipment  and  organi- 
sation. The  "pious  founder"  has  long  died  out  in  Europe. 
He  is  alive  in  America,  and  seems  to  possess  some  magic 
source  of  inexhaustible  munificence. 

Libraries,  of  course,  are  not  learning]  museums  and  labo- 
ratories are  not  knowledge]  much  less  is  an  enormous  read- 
ing public  literature.  And,  however  much  libraries  may  be 
crowded  with  readers,  however  spacious  and  lavish  are  the 
mountings  of  technical  schools,  and  though  seventy  millions 
of  articulate  men  and  women  can  pass  the  seventh  standard  of 
a  board  school,  the  question  of  the  fruit  of  all  this  remains 
to  be  answered.  The  passing  visitor  to  the  United  States 
forms  his  own  impression  as  to  the  bulk  and  the  diffusion  of 
the  instruments  of  education ;  but  he  is  in  no  better  position 
than  any  one  else  to  measure  the  product.  The  sight  of  such 
a  vast  apparatus  of  education,  such  demand  for  education, 
and  that  emphatically  by  both  sexes,  must  create  a  profound 
impression.  The  Cooper  Institute  of  New  York,  one  of  the 
earliest  of  these  popular  endowments,  still  managed  and 


1 84  MEMORIES  AND    THOUGHTS 

developed  by  three  generations  of  the  family  descended  from 
its  venerable  founder,  the  Jeremy  Bentham  of  New  York, 
is  a  typical  example  of  a  people's  palace  where  science,  art, 
and  literature  are  offered  absolutely  free  to  all  comers.  But 
what  is  the  result?  Few  Americans  pretend  that,  with  all 
the  immense  diffusion  of  elementary  knowledge  of  science  in 
the  United  States,  the  higher  science  is  quite  abreast  of  that  of 
Europe.  Of  scholarship,  in  the  technical  sense  of  the  word, 
in  spite  of  the  vast  numbers  of  "graduates,"  the  same  thing 
may  be  said.  And  no  one  pretends  that  American  literature 
rivals  that  of  France  in  its  finer  forms  —  or  indeed  that  of 
England. 

The  reason  for  this  is  not  obscure,  and  it  is  hardly  covered 
by  the  ordinary  suggestion  that  the  American  people  are 
absorbed  in  the  pursuit  of  gain  and  material  improvement. 
However  much  this  may  react  on  the  intellectual  world,  the 
numbers  of  the  American  people  are  so  great  that  numerically, 
if  not  proportionately,  those  who  are  devoted  to  science,  art, 
and  literature  are  at  least  as  many  as  they  are  in  England. 
The  vast  development  of  material  interest  is  rather  a  stimulus 
to  the  pursuit  of  science  than  a  hindrance,  as  the  vast  multi- 
plication of  books  is  a  stimulus  to  authorship.  But  why  sup- 
pose that  a  general  interest  in  practical  science  conduces  to 
high  scientific  culture,  or  that  millions  of  readers  tend  to  fos- 
ter a  pure  taste  in  letters  ?  The  contrary  result  would  be 
natural.  Practical  mechanics  is  not  the  same  thing  as  scien- 
tific genius.  And  the  wider  the  reading  public  becomes,  the 
lower  is  the  average  of  literary  culture. 

But  other  things  combine  to  the  same  result.  The  absence 
of  any  capital  city,  any  acknowledged  literary  centre,  in  a 
country  of  vast  area  with  scattered  towns,  the  want  of  a  large 
society  exclusively  occupied  with  culture  and  forming  a  world 
of  its  own,  the  uniformity  of  American  life,  and  the  little 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  AMERICA  185 

scope  it  gives  to  the  refined  ease  and  the  graceful  dolce  jar 
niente  of  European  beaux  mondes,  all  these  have  something  to 
do  with  a  low  average  of  lettered  genius. 

The  lighter  American  literature  has  little  of  the  charm  and 
sparkle  that  mark  the  best  writing  of  France,  because,  apart 
from  national  gifts  of  esprit,  American  society  does  not  lend 
itself  to  the  daily  practice  of  polished  conversation.  After 
all,  it  is  conversation,  the  spoken  thought  of  groups  of  men 
and  women  in  familiar  and  easy  intercourse,  which  gives  the 
aroma  of  literature  to  written  ideas.  And  where  the  arts  of 
conversation  have  but  a  moderate  scope  and  value,  the  litera- 
ture will  be  solid  but  seldom  brilliant. 

But  all  these  conditions,  if  they  tend  in  the  same  direction, 
are  perhaps  of  minor  importance.  The  essential  point  is 
that  literature  of  a  high  order  is  the  product  of  long  tradition 
and  of  a  definite  social  environment.  Millions  of  readers  do 
not  make  it,  nor  myriads  of  writers,  though  they  read  the 
same  books  and  use  the  same  language  and  think  the  same 
thoughts.  A  distinctive  literature  is  the  typical  expression  of 
some  organised  society,  cultivated  by  long  user  and  moulded 
on  accepted  standards.  It  would  be  as  unreasonable  to  look 
for  a  formed  and  classical  style  in  a  young,  inorganic,  and 
fluid  society,  however  large  it  may  be  and  however  voracious 
of  printed  matter,  as  to  look  in  such  a  land  for  Westminster 
Abbeys  and  Windsor  Castles.  America  will  no  doubt  in  the 
centuries  to  come  produce  a  national  literature  of  its  own, 
when  it  has  had  time  to  create  a  typical  society  of  its  own,  and 
intellectual  traditions  of  its  own. 

Literature,  politics,  manners  and  habits,  all  bear  the  same 
impress  of  the  dominant  idea  of  American  society — the  sense 
of  equality.  It  has  its  great  side,  its  conspicuous  advantages, 
and  it  has  also  its  limitations  and  its  weakness.  It  struck 
me  that  the  sense  of  equality  is  far  more  national  and  universal 


1 86  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

in  America  than  it  is  in  France,  for  all  the  paeans  to  equality 
that  the  French  pour  forth  and  their  fierce  protestations  to 
claim  it.  "Liberty,  equality,  and  fraternity"  is  not  inscribed 
on  public  edifices  in  the  United  States,  because  no  American 
citizen — or,  rather,  no  white  citizen — can  conceive  of  any- 
thing else.  The  shoeblack  shakes  hands  with  the  President, 
and  (in  the  absence  of  a  Pullman)  travels  in  the  same  car  with 
the  millionaire.  The  millionaire  has  a  very  restricted  house- 
hold of  servants,  and  they  are  more  or  less  his  masters,  be- 
cause the  true-born  American  will  not  accept  domestic  ser- 
vice on  any  wages,  and  the  Irish  "helps"  are  the  despair  of 
the  housekeeper.  The  owner  of  a  splendid  mansion  has  to 
ascend  ten  steps  to  his  own  door,  because  all  Americans,  and 
even  Irish  helps,  decline  to  live  in  rooms  below  the  level  of 
the  street.  Thus  the  ground  floor  belongs  to  the  domestic 
"auxiliaries."  The  middle-class  American  citizen  has  to 
black  his  own  boots  or  walk  out  to  a  blacking  stand,  because 
white  American  citizens  will  not  perform  so  menial  an  office. 
All  this  has  its  fine  side,  though  perhaps  the  reaction  from 
European  servility  is  carried  to  needless  lengths.  Is  it  natu- 
ral, they  say,  that  a  lad  who  may  live  to  be  a  senator  or  a 
President,  to  found  a  university,  or  to  control  a  railroad,  should 
black  another  citizen's  boots  ?  Should  a  cookmaid  who  may 
live  to  drive  her  own  carriage  in  Central  Park  put  up  with  a 
cellar- kitchen  below  the  level  of  the  street  ?  Every  soldier  of 
Napoleon  carried  a  marshal's  bdton  in  his  knapsack.  And 
every  American  citizen  has  a  Fortunatus'  cap  in  his  pocket, 
if  he  only  knew  how  to  fit  it  on  his  head.  And  this  he  is 
perpetually  trying  to  do. 

But  this  ingrained  sense  of  the  absolute  equality  of  all 
white  citizens  reacts  on  all  things.  The  Congressman  is,  at 
Washington,  a  successful  politician;  but,  outside  Congress, 
he  is  one  of  seventy  millions.  A  senator,  a  cabinet  minister, 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  AMERICA  187 

or  a  President,  is  merely  a  prominent  citizen  raised  by  ballot 
from  the  ranks,  to  return  to  the  ranks  when  his  term  of  office 
is  up.  The  reaction  from  the  divine  right  and  hereditary 
privileges  of  the  monarchies  and  aristocracies  of  Europe  has 
led  to  slipshod  habits  in  public  affairs  which  scandalise  the 
Old  World  and  go  much  deeper  than  mere  outsides. 

Men  who  manage  affairs  of  state  in  their  shirt-sleeves 
are  too  apt  to  take  a  rough  and  ready  view  of  life  and  of  that 
which  is  becoming  and  right.  The  dominant  social  maxim 
seems  to  be  caveat  emptor.  The  paramount  political  maxim 
is  quod  populus  vult  Deus  vult,  or  it  may  be  populus  vult 
decipi,  et  decipiatur.  As  Mr.  Bryce  has  so  well  said,  the 
sense  of  noblesse  oblige,  which  still  survives  in  Europe  as  a 
force  constraining  men  in  high  office  or  in  great  social  position, 
has  hardly  any  equivalent  in  American  life.  The  want  of 
commanding  social  influence  by  men  of  great  reputation  and 
acknowledged  standing  makes  itself  felt  in  national  and 
municipal  affairs,  in  manners,  in  business,  and  in  literature. 
A  certain  French  philosopher  who  comes  to  England  is  wont 
to  say  at  once,  "You  have  an  organised  society;  our  society 
is  inorganic,  and  no  class  or  group  exercises  any  social  influ- 
ence." All  this  has  its  bad  side  as  well  as  its  good  side.  So, 
in  crossing  the  Atlantic,  the  observer  finds  that  he  has  left  a 
world  more  or  less  "organised"  for  good  or  for  ill,  and  has 
come  to  a  society  which,  for  good  or  for  evil,  is  organised  only 
as  a  huge  electoral  machine.  Public  men  in  America  are 
commonly  accused  of  accepting  the  moral  standards  of  the 
mass  and  of  tamely  yielding  to  the  voice  of  majorities.  Their 
excuse  is  that  their  fellow-citizens  would  resent  their  setting 
up  superior  standards  of  their  own,  and  flatly  refuse  to  accept 
any  leadership  from  them.  Where  in  England  a  man  of 
ambition  is  constantly  aiming  to  gain  "influence,"  and  is 
constantly  considering  "what  is  due  to  his  own  position,"  in 


188  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

America  he  has  little  need  to  consider  anything  but  what 
will  satisfy  the  electors,  and  what  is  the  average  conscience  of 
the  larger  number.  He  has  no  "position"  to  maintain. 

THE  CAPITAL 

The  ceremony  of  the  Inauguration  of  the  President  and 
Vice-President  at  Washington  on  the  4th  of  March  is,  indeed, 
a  characteristic  and  suggestive  function.  I  had  the  good  for- 
tune to  witness  it  this  year  [1901]  under  the  most  favourable 
conditions,  and  I  was  deeply  impressed  with  all  it  represented. 
It  summed  up  the  vast  extent  and  power  of  the  United  States, 
its  absolute  democracy,  the  simplicity,  ease,  and  homeliness 
of  its  government,  its  contempt  of  forms,  its  entire  confidence 
in  itself  and  perfect  satisfaction  with  its  own  ways.  In  the 
grand  Capitol  of  the  noble  city  of  Washington,  than  which  no 
finer  edifice  or  city  exists  in  the  Old  World,  were  gathered 
the  men  chosen  by  the  adult  citizens  of  a  nation  of  some 
seventy  millions,  scattered  over  a  vast  continent.  The 
President,  Vice-President,  senators,  and  representatives 
elected  on  this  enormous  ballot,  entrusted  with  this  stupen- 
dous power  and  wealth,  sate  indistinguishable  from  the  or- 
dinary citizens  around  them  —  clerks,  secretaries,  journal- 
ists, and  casual  friends,  who  were  crowded  pell-mell  on  the 
floor  of  the  Senate  House  itself. 

To  this  miscellaneous  body,  which  might  be  any  average 
county  council  or  borough  board,  there  entered  a  long  file 
of  ambassadors  and  Ministers  in  all  the  finery  of  European 
and  Oriental  courts ;  uniforms  blazing  with  gold  lace,  plumes, 
velvet  or  fur,  swords,  sabres,  and  helmets ;  the  Austro-Hun- 
garian  magnate,  the  stately  ambassadors  of  Great  Britain, 
Germany,  France,  and  Russia,  in  their  court  uniforms,  stars, 
crosses,  and  ribbons;  Mr.  Wu  Ting-fang,  the  accomplished 


IMPRESSIONS   OF  AMERICA  189 

Minister  of  China,  in  his  buttoned  head-dress  and  embroid- 
ered silks;  the  Japanese  Minister,  in  European  court  uni- 
form ;  the  envoys  of  the  smaller  Powers  of  Europe,  and  then 
the  diplomatists  of  the  South  American  and  Central  American 
and  West  Indian  States;  black  men,  brown  men,  whity- 
brown  men,  in  various  gaudy  uniforms ;  the  Minister  of  the 
Sultan  in  his  fez,  those  of  Siam  and  Korea  in  their  national 
dress  —  more  than  thirty  in  all,  in  every  colour,  adornment, 
and  style  representing  men  of  every  race,  from  every  part  of 
the  planet. 

This  brilliant  and  motley  group  may  be  seen  at  St.  Ste- 
phen's, or  at  the  functions  of  Berlin  and  St.  Petersburg, 
where  it  is  only  a  natural  part  of  similar  bravery  and  feudal 
splendour.  But  here,  in  a  hall  crowded  with  sober  citizens 
in  broadcloth,  without  a  star,  a  ribbon,  or  a  sword  between 
them,  the  effect  was  almost  comic.  Siam,  Korea,  Hungary, 
and  Portugal  as  gay  as  butterflies  !  M'Kinley  and  Roosevelt 
matter-of-fact  civilians,  as  if  they  were  Chairman  and  Vice- 
Chairman  of  the  London  County  Council !  And  around 
them  were  the  chosen  delegates  of  the  great  Republic,  jostled 
in  their  own  hall  by  pressmen,  secretaries,  and  curious  stran- 
gers like  myself.  The  shirt-sleeve  theory  of  government 
could  hardly  go  farther,  and,  perhaps,  need  not  go  quite  so 
far.  My  own  republican  soul  was  stirred  when  I  set  myself 
to  think  which  of  the  two  forms  would  prevail  in  the  cen- 
turies to  come.  I  thought  first  of  the  Roman  Senate  (accord- 
ing to  the  old  myth),  sitting  immovable  as  statues  in  their 
white  togas,  when  the  Gauls  of  Brennus,  in  their  torques  and 
war-paint,  dashed  into  the  Senate  House ;  and  then  I  began 
to  think,  Were  these  quiet  citizens  seated  there  to  see  a  comic 
opera  at  the  Savoy  Theatre  ? 

Not  that  the  representatives  of  the  Republic  are  wanting 
in  personal  bearing.  The  President  sate  through  the  cere- 


190  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

monies  with  placid  dignity,  his  fine  features,  in  their  stern 
repose,  looking  like  a  bronze  figure  of  the  Elder  Brutus  or 
Cato  the  Censor.  At  a  personal  reception  in  the  White 
House  Mr.  M'Kinley  will  show  as  much  grace  and  courtesy 
of  demeanour  as  any  Sovereign  by  divine  right,  and  his 
smile  and  his  voice  are  pronounced  (not  only  by  women)  to 
be  perfectly  winning.  The  diplomatists  of  Europe  agree 
in  assuring  us  that  nothing  can  exceed  the  tact  and  "correct- 
ness" which  distinguish  Mr.  Hay,  the  accomplished  Secre- 
tary of  State.  It  is  true  that  Congressmen  (in  their  shirt- 
sleeves) have  not  that  repose  of  manner  which  marks  the 
caste  of  Vere  de  Vere.  But  the  men  who  are  charged  to 
speak  in  the  name  of  the  State  will  usually  be  found  to  rise 
to  the  occasion  with  that  facility  which  enables  every  genuine 
American  to  adapt  himself  to  play  a  new  part,  and  to  fulfil 
an  unaccustomed  duty. 

It  is  no  easy  task  to  combine  the  conduct  of  vast  interests, 
the  representation  of  enormous  power,  with  the  ultra-demo- 
cratic traditions  of  the  absolute  equality  of  all  citizens.  No 
sooner  had  the  President  summoned  before  him  the  splendif- 
erous envoys  of  the  whole  world,  than  he  passed  out  to  the 
historic  steps  of  the  Capitol,  to  pronounce  his  Inaugural  Ad- 
dress. As  I  stood  near  him  and  listened  to  the  clear  and 
keenly-balanced  sentences,  which  the  cables  and  telegraphs 
of  the  civilised  world  were  carrying  to  expectant  nations,  I 
noticed  how  the  crowd,  a  few  feet  only  below  him,  was  a 
miscellaneous  gathering  from  the  streets,  like  a  knot  in  the 
Park  listening  to  a  Salvation  preacher  or  a  socialist  orator  on 
a  Sunday,  negroes  and  lads  not  the  least  vociferous  in  their 
applause,  whilst  on  a  platform  fifty  yards  off  there  were 
mounted  a  dozen  batteries  of  photographers,  from  kodaks 
to  life-size  lenses.  The  American  public  man  —  even  the 
private  man  and  woman  —  has  always  to  reckon  with  the 
man  in  the  street,  journalists,  and  kodaks. 


IMPRESSIONS    OF  AMERICA  191 

It  is  needless  to  point  the  moral  of  the  difference  between 
the  Inaugural  Address  of  a  President,  delivered  in  the  open 
air  to  a  miscellaneous  crowd,  and  the  speech  of  an  European 
Sovereign  opening  Parliament.  The  one  is  an  elaborate 
State  paper,  spoken  by  a  citizen  in  frock-coat  to  a  mob  of 
his  fellow-citizens  in  the  street;  the  other  is  usually  con- 
ventional platitudes,  pronounced  in  a  gorgeous  palace  with 
a  scene  of  mediaeval  pageantry.  It  is  the  contrast  between 
the  monarchical  survival  and  Republican  realism.  Kodaks, 
mobs,  and  vociferous  negroes  are  not  a  necessary  part  of  the 
government  of  a  State.  But  the  Presidential  address  from 
the  steps  of  the  Capitol  is  certainly  more  like  that  of  Pericles  on 
the  Pnyx,  or  of  Scipio  and  Marius  on  the  Rostra,  than  our 
House  of  Lords ;  and  it  is  conceivable  that  it  may  prove  more 
agreeable  to  the  practice  of  future  republics  in  the  ages  to 
come.  The  President  of  the  United  States  expounds  his 
policy  in  a  reasoned  argument  to  all  citizens  who  choose  to 
hear  him.  The  European  monarch  performs  a  traditional 
ceremonial  to  a  crowd  of  stage  courtiers  who  possess  office 
without  power  and  honour  without  responsibility. 

The  White  House,  as  the  executive  mansion  is  called,  is 
interesting  for  its  historic  associations,  which  exactly  cover 
the  nineteenth  century,  with  its  portraits  and  reminiscences 
of  Presidents  and  statesmen,  and  its  characteristic  simplicity 
and  modest  appointments.  It  is  not  a  convenient  residence 
for  a  President  with  such  great  responsibilities.  But,  as  a 
term  of  residence  is  usually  so  short,  and  the  associations  of 
the  house  are  so  rich,  it  would  be  a  pity  to  change  it  for  a 
pretentious  modern  palace.  In  the  meantime  the  quiet  old 
mansion,  merely  a  fine  Georgian  country  house  in  a  pleasant 
park,  serves  to  remind  the  American  citizen  of  the  democratic 
origin  of  his  Chief  Magistrate,  who  is  certainly  not  yet  an 
emperor.  The  White  House  was  a  residence  suitable  for 


192  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

men  like  Jefferson,  Lincoln,  and  Grant;  and  it  seems  a  not 
unfitting  office  for  their  successors. 

The  Capitol  at  Washington  struck  me  as  being  the  most 
effective  mass  of  public  buildings  in  the  world,  especially 
when  viewed  at  some  distance,  and  from  the  park  in  which 
it  stands.  I  am  well  aware  of  certain  constructive  defects 
which  have  been  insisted  on  by  Ferguson  and  other  critics; 
and  no  one  pretends  that  it  is  a  perfect  design  of  the  highest 
order  either  in  originality  or  style.  It  will  have  one  day 
to  be  entirely  refaced  with  white  stone.  But  as  an  effective 
public  edifice  of  a  grandiose  kind,  I  doubt  if  any  capital  city 
can  show  its  equal.  This  is  largely  due  to  the  admirable 
proportions  of  its  central  dome  group,  which  I  hold  to  be, 
from  the  pictorial  point  of  view,  more  successful  than  those 
of  St.  Peter's,  the  Cathedral  of  Florence,  Agia  Sophia,  St. 
Isaac's,  the  Pantheon,  St.  Paul's,  or  the  new  Cathedral  of 
Berlin.  But  the  unique  effect  is  still  more  due  to  the  mag- 
nificent site  which  the  Capitol  at  Washington  enjoys.  I  have 
no  hesitation  in  saying  that  the  site  of  the  Capitol  is  the  noblest 
in  the  world,  if  we  exclude  that  of  the  Parthenon  in  its  pristine 
glory.  Neither  Rome  nor  Constantinople,  nor  Florence,  nor 
Paris,  nor  Berlin  nor  London  possesses  any  central  eminence 
with  broad  open  spaces  on  all  sides,  crowned  by  a  vast  pile 
covering  nearly  four  acres  and  rising  to  a  height  of  nearly 
three  hundred  feet,  which  seems  to  dominate  the  whole  city. 
Washington  is  the  only  capital  city  which  has  this  colossal 
centre  or  crown.  And  Londoners  can  imagine  the  effect  if 
their  St.  Paul's  stood  in  an  open  park  reaching  from  the 
Temple  to  Finsbury  Circus,  and  the  great  creation  of  Wren 
were  dazzling  white  marble,  and  soared  into  an  atmosphere 
of  sunny  light. 

Washington,  the  youngest  capital  city  of  the  world,  bids 
fair  to  become,  before  the  twentieth  century  is  ended,  the 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  AMERICA  193 

most  beautiful  and  certainly  the  most  commodious.  It  is  the 
only  capital  which  has  been  laid  out  from  the  first  entirely 
on  modern  lines,  with  organic  unity  of  plan,  unencumbered 
with  any  antique  limitations  and  confusions.  The  spacious 
avenues,  intersected  by  very  broad  streets,  all  lined  with 
maple  and  elm,  and  radiating  from  a  multitude  of  "circles," 
its  numerous  parks  and  squares,  with  fountains,  monuments, 
and  equestrian  statues  at  each  available  junction,  its  semi- 
tropical  climate,  for  it  is  in  the  latitude  of  Lisbon  and  Palermo, 
its  freedom  from  the  disfigurements  of  smoke,  trade,  and 
manufactures,  its  singular  form  of  government  under  a 
State  autocracy  without  any  municipal  representation,  give 
it  unique  opportunities  to  develop.  As  yet  it  is  but  half 
completed,  owing  to  local  difficulties  as  to  rights  of  property; 
and  it  still  has  the  air  of  an  artificial  experiment  in  city  archi- 
tecture. But  within  two  or  three  generations,  when  its  vacant 
sites  are  filled  up,  and  public  buildings,  monuments,  and 
statues  continue  to  be  raised  with  all  the  wealth,  resources, 
and  energy  of  the  Republic,  if  the  artists  of  the  future  can 
be  restrained  within  the  limits  of  good  sense  and  fine  taste, 
Washington  may  look  more  like  the  Rome  of  the  Antonines 
than  any  city  of  the  old  world. 

MOUNT  VERNON 

Of  all  that  I  saw  in  America,  I  look  back  with  most  emo- 
tion to  my  visit  to  Mount  Vernon,  the  home  and  burial-place 
of  George  Washington.  I  saw  it  on  a  lovely  spring  day, 
amidst  thousands  of  pilgrims,  in  the  Inauguration  week. 
On  a  finely-wooded  bluff,  rising  above  the  grand  Potomac 
river,  stands  the  plain  but  spacious  wooden  house  of  the 
Founder  of  the  Republic.  It  has  been  preserved  and  partly 
restored  with  perfect  taste,  the  original  furniture,  pictures, 


194 


MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 


and  ornaments  supplemented  by  fit  contemporary  pieces. 
It  enables  one  perfectly  to  conjure  up  an  image  of  the  homely, 
large,  and  generous  life  of  the  President  before  the  war 
called  him  to  the  field,  and  after  he  had  retired  from  all  cares 
of  state.  We  fancy  him  sitting  under  the  spacious  eastern 
portico,  with  its  eight  tall  columns,  looking  out  over  the  broad 
landscape  of  forest  and  river,  or  lying  in  his  last  sleep  in  the 
simple  bed,  with  its  dimity  coverlet,  and  then  laid  to  rest  in 
the  rural  tomb  below  the  house,  which  he  ordered  himself, 
and  in  which  his  descendants  have  insisted  on  keeping  his 
remains.  General  Grant  lies  beside  the  Hudson  at  New 
York,  in  a  magnificent  mausoleum  palpably  imitated  from 
the  tomb  of  Napoleon  in  the  Invalides.  Ho  win  finitely  more 
fitting  and  more  touching  is  the  Spartan  simplicity  of  Washing- 
ton's burial-place  —  an  austere  cell  within  his  own  ancestral 
ground ;  yet  not  a  morning's  drive  from  the  splendid  capital 
which  the  nation  has  named  after  its  heroic  founder  —  how 
much  more  fitting  and  more  touching  is  this  than  is  the  pom- 
pous mausoleum  to  which  they  have  carried  the  bones  of  the 
tyrant  who  ruined  France  !  It  has  been  frequently  attempted 
to  remove  from  Mount  Vernon,  his  home,  the  sarcophagus  in 
which  Washington  lies,  in  order  to  place  it  under  the  dome 
of  the  Capitol.  But  as  yet  it  has  been  wisely  decided  to  do 
nothing  which  can  impair  the  unique  legend  which  has 
gathered  round  the  memory  of  the  western  Cincinnatus. 

In  a  country  so  flagrantly  new  as  America,  with  every  town 
and  building  striving  to  show  its  intense  modernity,  the  few 
remnants  even  of  eighteenth-century  antiquity  have  a  rare 
charm  and  a  special  value.  They  awaken  an  interest  far 
beyond  that  of  their  actual  beauty  or  quaintness,  for  they 
represent  the  only  history  of  a  country  which  has  grown  to  be 
so  vast  and  so  different.  Such  relics  as  Mount  Vernon,  In- 
dependence Hall  and  Carpenter's  Hall  at  Philadelphia,  the 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  AMERICA  195 

Common  of  Boston,  the  Green  at  Newhaven,  and  a  few  bits 
at  Baltimore  and  old  New  York  may  still  attract  a  traveller 
sated  with  the  most  picturesque  corners  of  Europe.  The 
history  of  the  American  soil  is  a  very  short  record.  But,  such 
as  it  is,  the  American  people  seem  very  keen  to  cherish  it  in 
perpetuity.  If  the  preservation  of  Mount  Vernon  and  of 
Independence  Hall  as  national  monuments  is  the  finest 
example  of  this,  the  most  amusing  instance  is  the  rescue  of 
the  wooden  cottage  of  Betsy  Ross  in  Arch  Street,  Philadelphia, 
where  the  original  "star-spangled  banner"  was  constructed  in 
1777  and  approved  by  General  Washington. 

Few  Englishmen  seem  to  know  the  history  of  the  "Stars 
and  Stripes."  In  its  original  form  it  was  a  not  ungainly 
device,  adapted  from  the  undoubted  arms  of  the  English 
family  of  Washington.  These  were :  argent,  two  bars  gules, 
on  a  chief  azure  three  mullets  [stars]  of  the  first  [argent].  When 
the  thirteen  States  of  the  Union  resolved  to  adapt  a  national 
flag  from  the  ancestral  coat  of  their  chief,  this  became  "barry 
of  thirteen,  gules  and  argent,  on  a  chief  azure  thirteen  mul- 
lets of  the  second  arranged  in  circlet."  But  when  the  other 
States  were  added,  the  "stars"  began  to  be  increased,  until 
to-day  the  flag  displays,  on.  a  canton  azure,  forty-five  mullets 
argent  in  monotonous  rows.  Nothing  more  artless,  confused, 
and  unheraldic  can  be  conceived. 

An  unlucky  question  was  once  put  to  me  by  a  patriot, 
whether  the  "star-spangled  banner"  was  not  beautiful  as  a 
work  of  art.  I  was  obliged  to  answer  that,  with  all  my 
veneration  for  the  banner  of  the  Republic,  in  my  humble 
judgment  it  was  (heraldically  speaking)  both  awkward  and 
ugly,  unbalanced,  undecipherable,  and  mechanical.  It  may 
be  well  to  distinguish  the  Republican  emblem  from  the 
feudal  heraldry  of  the  Old  World,  but  it  is  a  pity  that  the 
invention  of  the  New  World  could  not  have  devised  an  emblem 


196  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

with  some  claim  to  be  clearly  read  and  to  look  graceful.  The 
thirteen  bars,  or  stripes,  have  now  lost  their  significance,  and 
might  in  time  disappear.  A  plain  field,  semee  of  "stars," 
would  not  be  unsightly  nor  too  difficult  to  distinguish.  Forty- 
five  mullets  on  a  canton  (i.e.  a  corner)  in  six  regular  rows  are 
not  easily  visible  at  all,  and,  when  perceived,  are  hardly 
elegant. 

PROBLEMS  TO  BE  SOLVED 

America  is  making  violent  efforts  to  evolve  a  national  archi- 
tecture ;  but  as  yet  it  has  produced  little  but  miscellaneous 
imitations  of  European  types  and  some  wonderful  construc- 
tive devices.  A  walk  along  the  Broadway  and  Fifth  Avenue 
of  New  York  leaves  the  impression  of  an  extraordinary  medley 
of  incongruous  styles,  highly  ingenious  adaptations,  admi- 
rable artistic  workmanship,  triumphs  of  mechanics,  the 
lavish  use  of  splendid  materials,  and  an  architectural  pot 
pourri  which  almost  rivals  the  Rue  des  Nations  at  the  Paris 
exhibition  of  1900.  There  are  some  excellent  copies  of 
European  buildings,  such  as  the  Giralda  of  Seville,  Venetian 
palaces,  Chateaux  from  Touraine,  Palladian  loggie,  and  here 
and  there  a  German  schloss.  There  are  some  beautiful 
revivals  of  fine  art,  such  as  the  thirteenth-century  Gothic  of 
St.  Patrick's,  the  Italian  palaces  of  the  Metropolitan  and 
University  Clubs,  the  Renaissance  palaces  of  the  Vander- 
bilts.  Facing  the  Central  Park,  each  millionaire  seems  to 
have  commissioned  his  architect  to  build  him  a  mansion  of 
any  ancient  style  from  Byzantine  to  the  last  French  Empire, 
provided  only  it  was  in  contrast  to  the  style  of  his  neighbours. 
So  commissioned,  the  a.rtist  has  lavished  skilful  carving, 
singular  ingenuity,  and  noble  material  in  stone,  marble,  and 
mosaic.  Many  of  these  are  interesting  experiments  and  some 


IMPRESSIONS   OF  AMERICA  197 

are  beautiful ;  but  the  general  effect  of  such  rampant  eclecti- 
cism is  rather  bewildering. 

In  constructive  novelties  the  American  builder  is  consum- 
mate. Amongst  these  are  the  Brobdingnagian  piles  of  twenty 
stories,  the  substitution  of  lifts  for  staircases,  the  construc- 
tion of  edifices  of  steel,  the  profuse  use  of  stone  and  marble 
as  ornaments  rather  than  as  material,  the  multiplication  of 
baths,  heating  apparatus,  electric  and  other  mechanical 
devices,  and  the  intensely  modern  and  up-to-date  contriv- 
ances which  put  to  shame  the  clumsy  conservatism  of  the 
Old  World.  Nothing  in  Europe  since  the  fall  of  old  Rome 
and  Byzantium,  not  even  Genoa  in  its  prime,  has  equalled 
the  lavish  use  of  magnificent  marble  columns,  granite  blocks, 
and  ornamental  stone  as  we  see  it  to-day  in  the  United  States. 
The  Illinois  Trust  Bank  of  Chicago  —  a  vast  marble  palace 
—  is,  I  suppose,  the  most  sumptuous  and  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  commercial  edifices  in  the  world;  and  its  safety 
deposit  vaults  are  among  the  sights  of  that  city  —  magically 
opening  as  with  an  "Open  Sesame." 

The  reckless  use  of  precious  marbles  seems  to  threaten 
exhaustion  of  the  quarries,  but  one  is  assured  that  they  are 
ample  for  all  demands.  Why  more  use  is  not  made  in  Europe 
of  the  magnificent  marbles  of  America  is  not  very  obvious. 
But  we  certainly  might  easily  adopt  some  of  the  constructive 
devices  of  their  builders.  Not,  one  trusts,  the  outrageous 
towers  of  Babel,  in  twenty  or  twenty-four  floors  and  five 
hundred  rooms,  built  of  steel,  and  faced  with  "granite  as  a 
veneer,  which  are  seen  in  New  York  and  Chicago,  and  hope- 
lessly disfigure  both  cities.  If  these  became  general,  the 
streets  would  become  dark  and  windy  canons,  and  human 
nature  would  call  out  for  their  suppression.  But  the  British 
architect  has  much  to  learn  from  modern  American  builders. 
In  matters  of  construction,  contrivance,  the  free  use  of  new 


198  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

kinds  of  stone  and  wood,  of  plumbing,  heating,  and  the  minor 
arts  of  fitting,  the  belated  European  in  America  feels  himself 
a  Rip  Van  Winkle,  whirled  into  a  new  century  and  a  later 
civilisation. 

As  to  the  two  burning  problems  of  American  society  — 
the  Labour  question  and  the  Negro  question  —  it  would 
be  idle  for  a  passing  tourist  to  pretend  to  an  opinion  of  his 
own.  Certainly,  there  is  not  visible  in  the  United  States, 
even  in  the  slums  of  New  York,  Chicago,  or  Philadelphia, 
anything  approaching  the  acuteness  and  extent  of  the  desti- 
tution to  be  seen  in  London,  Liverpool,  or  Glasgow.  The 
slums  of  American  cities  are  filled,  it  is  true,  with  the  waifs 
and  strays,  failures  and  outcasts,  from  Europe,  and  are  not  of 
native  American  origin.  But  those  who  have  made  a  com- 
parative study  of  the  life  of  the  poor  assure  us  that  nowhere 
in  the  United  States  are  the  general  conditions  of  the  work- 
man so  threatening  as  they  are  too  often  in  Europe,  and  the 
evils  are  certainly  less  difficult  to  cure.  An  influx  of  cosmo- 
politan misery  has  filled  America  with  embarrassing  prob- 
lems, but  the  enormous  resources  of  its  continent,  and  the  vast 
opportunities  which  its  development  affords,  give  Industry 
a  free  hand  such  as  is  elsewhere  impossible  and  unknown. 

The  future  of  the  Negro  has  always  seemed  to  us  in  Europe 
the  gravest  of  all  American  problems.  And  though  I  saw 
nothing  to  justify  the  extravagant  stories  we  are  told  as  to 
race  antipathy  and  the  ostracism  of  the  negro,  I  was  surprised 
and  shocked  to  hear  from  men  of  great  cultivation  and  hu- 
manity such  sweeping  condemnation  of  the  negro  race,  such 
cool  indifference  to  the  continual  reports  of  barbarous  lynch- 
ings  which  appear  almost  daily  in  the  public  prints,  and  that 
in  other  than  old  Slave  States.  I  should  come  to  look  on  the 
race  problem  as  incapable  of  any  satisfactory  solution  were 
it  not  for  such  examples  as  that  of  Tuskegee  and  similar 


IMPRESSIONS  OF   AMERICA  199 

foundations.  The  life  of  Booker  Washington,  as  told  in  his 
autobiography  called  Up  from  Slavery,  is  one  of  the  most 
wonderful  of  our  age.  The  story  of  the  success  in  the  educa- 
tion of  the  Negro  achieved  by  this  ex-slave,  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  of  living  men,  and  by  the  white  and  coloured 
friends  by  whom  he  was  assisted,  may  serve  to  convince  us 
that  the  Negro  problem  may  yet  find  a  happy  end. 

About  the  prodigious  luxury,  extravagance,  and  money- 
making  of  the  United  States,  of  which  we  hear  so  much,  a 
passing  visitor  has  no  right  to  dogmatise.  America  is  a 
very  rich  country,  where  everything  but  raw  material  is  very 
dear,  where  fortunes  are  made  very  rapidly,  and  where  the 
scale  of  everything  is  raised  in  proportion.  The  sudden  ac- 
quisition of  wealth  is  more  often  the  result  of  the  vast  num- 
bers of  those  who  deal  in  any  market  or  buy  any  commodity, 
rather  than  of  any  abnormal  development  of  the  acquisitive 
instinct.  The  railroad,  or  corn,  or  oil  "boss"  becomes  a 
multi-millionaire  in  a  decade  owing  to  the  colossal  scale  of 
the  railroad,  corn,  and  oil  trades.  There  are  perhaps  more 
rich  men  in  America  than  there  are  in  Europe,  but  then  there 
are  not  so  many  poor  men.  There  are  costly  mansions  in 
New  York  city,  though  none  on  the  scale  of  Stafford  House, 
Bridgewater  House,  and  Dorchester  House.  And  there  are 
no  such  royal  palaces  as  Arundel  Castle,  Castle  Howard, 
Longleat,  and  Mentmore.  American  millionaires  do  not 
own  spacious  parks,  racing-studs,  and  deer-forests,  nor  are 
they  surrounded  by  armies  of  tenants,  dependants,  servants, 
and  equipages  as  are  described  in  Lothair.  They  roll  up 
fortunes,  often  automatically,  owing  to  the  wealth  and  num- 
bers of  the  population  in  which  their  capital  operates.  And 
they  lavish  their  rapid  gains  sometimes  in  houses,  paintings, 
yachts,  and  banquets,  and  not  seldom  in  schools,  observa- 
tories, and  museums.  But  I  saw  nothing  to  suggest  that 


200  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

wealth  in  America  is  worse  acquired  or  worse  applied  than 
it  is  in  Europe. 

I  must  repeat  that  I  am  giving  nothing  but  the  first  im- 
pressions of  a  passing  visitor  who  spent  two  months  in  the 
United  States  for  the  first  time  in  his  life.  Though  I  had 
special  opportunities  to  see  from  the  central  point  the  official 
world,  the  universities,  the  literary  and  the  commercial  so- 
ciety, I  am  well  aware  that  I  brought  away  nothing  more  than 
the  thumb-nail  sketches  of  an  impressionist.  But  my  im- 
pression is  that  the  accounts  we  too  often  get  of  American  life 
are  ridiculous  exaggerations.  English  journalism  distorts 
and  magnifies  the  caricatures  it  presents,  just  as  American 
journalism  distorts  and  magnifies  the  traits  of  English  life. 

There  are,  no  doubt,  vices,  blots,  follies,  and  social  diseases 
on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic,  but  the  proportion  these  bear 
to  the  nation  is  grossly  overstated  by  sensational  literature. 
As  to  the  worship  of  the  "Almighty  Dollar,"  I  neither  saw  it 
nor  heard  of  it ;  hardly  as  much  as  we  do  at  home.  I  may 
say  the  same  as  to  official  corruption  and  political  intrigue. 
Congress,  ministers,  magistrates  in  the  United  States  seemed 
to  me  to  be  a  good  deal  of  the  same  stuff  as  parliaments,  cabi- 
nets, and  judges  with  us.  There  are  a  few  good  journals; 
but  the  average  Press  seemed  to  me  dull,  trivial,  provincial, 
and  harmless,  however  insipid.  The  yellow  Press,  the  brutal 
and  gutter  Press,  I  never  saw  nor  heard  of,  nor  did  I  meet  any 
one  who  read  it.  New  York,  of  course,  has  the  vices  of  great 
cities,  but  they  are  not  visible  to  the  eye,  and  they  are  a  drop 
in  the  ocean  of  the  American  people.  Even  the  passing  tour- 
ist must  note  the  entire  freedom  of  American  towns  from  the 
indecencies  that  are  paraded  in  European  cities.  The  young- 
est girls  go  about  the  streets  of  New  York  alone ;  and  a  lady 
travels  unattended  from  San  Francisco  to  Washington.  I 
received  a  deep  impression  that  in  America  the  relations  of 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  AMERICA  2OI 

the  sexes  are  in  a  state  far  more  sound  and  pure  than  they  are 
in  the  Old  World;  that  the  original  feeling  of  the  Pilgrim 
Fathers  about  woman  and  about  man  has  sufficed  to  colour 
the  mental  and  moral  atmosphere,  and  to  give  all  sexual 
problems  a  new  and  clear  field  to  develop  in  normal  ways. 

I  close  my  impressions  with  a  sense  that  the  New  World 
offers  a  great  field,  both  moral  and  intellectual,  to  the  peace- 
ful development  of  an  industrial  society ;  that  this  society  is 
in  the  main  sound,  honest,  and  wholesome ;  that  vast  num- 
bers and  the  passion  of  equality  tend  to  low  averages  in 
thought,  in  manners,  and  in  public  opinion,  which  the  zeal 
of  the  devoted  minority  tends  gradually  to  raise  to  higher 
planes  of  thought  and  conduct ;  that  manners,  if  more  bois- 
terous, are  more  hearty  than  with  us,  and,  if  less  refined,  are 
free  from  some  conventional  morgue  and  hypocrisy;  that  in 
casting  off  many  of  the  bonds  of  European  tradition  and  feudal 
survivals,  the  American  democracy  has  cast  off  also  much  of 
the  aesthetic  and  moral  inheritance  left  in  the  Old  World; 
that  the  zeal  for  learning,  justice,  and  humanity  lies  so  deep 
in  the  American  heart  that  it  will  in  the  end  solve  the  two  grave 
problems  which  face  the  future  of  their  citizens  —  the  eternal 
struggle  between  capital  and  labour  —  the  gulf  between 
people  of  colour  and  the  people  of  European  blood. 


THE  TRUE  COSMOPOLIS 

1896 

THOUGHTFUL  and  patriotic  men  in  all  parts  of  Europe 
and  America  have  welcomed  various  attempts  to  found  some 
inter-communion  of  ideas  between  the  nations  of  the  West. 
All  the  chief  tongues  of  Europe  and  all  the  leading  minds  of 
both  continents  may  one  day  find  a  common  ground  for  inter- 
change of  thought.  Italian  and  Spanish  are  closely  akin. 
As  to  Russia,  so  few  of  us  read  the  Russian  language,  and 
educated  Russians  themselves  read  and  write  the  chief  Euro- 
pean languages  so  freely,  that  they  are  always  at  home.  The 
Hollander,  the  Dane,  the  Scandinavian,  are  usually  familiar 
with  German,  French,  or  English  —  if  not  with  all  three. 
And  much  the  same  is  true  of  the  cultured  world  of  South 
Eastern  Europe.  For  practical  purposes,  then,  an  ideal 
COSMOPOLIS  should  from  time  to  time  unite  the  five  chief 
languages  of  Western  Europe. 

There  have  been  found  some  to  doubt  if  there  is  any  room 
or  need  for  an  international  organ  in  these  days  of  incessant 
travel  and  rapid  diffusion  over  the  civilised  world  of  every- 
thing produced  by  the  Press,  whether  permanent  or  fugitive. 
Of  course,  in  this  age  of  telegraphs,  accelerated  post,  "  trains 
rapides,"  "trains  express,"  and  the  myriad-tongued  journal- 
ism that  circulates  in  every  village,  we  know  more  of  what  is 
being  done  and  said  in  European  countries  than  our  ances- 
tors knew.  Do  we  understand  each  other  as  well,  do  we  feel 

202 


THE  TRUE  COSMOPOLIS  203 

the  same  joy  in  the  art,  literature,  movements,  and  aspira- 
tions of  foreign  nations  as  was  common  enough  in  the  age  of 
Shakespeare,  or  the  age  of  Voltaire,  or  of  Hume,  or  of  Goethe  ? 
It  is  no  paradox  to  say  that  we  do  not.  We  hear  about  our 
neighbours  far  more  than  ever.  We  have  less  sympathy 
with  foreign  thought,  we  have  far  less  of  the  Cosmopolitan 
genius,  than  was  common  in  the  most  fertile  epochs  of  the 
human  mind. 

One  need  not  go  back  to  the  Middle  Ages,  when  there  was 
a  learned  language,  a  religion,  a  church,  a  system  of  educa- 
tion common  to  Europe,  so  that  all  men  of  superior  culture 
were  citizens  of  an  intellectual  commonwealth  apart  from 
any  national  distinctions.  The  great  Universities  had  their 
"nations"  who  sometimes  proceeded  to  contests  even  keener 
than  our  own  inter-University  "Sports";  but  the  superior 
minds  could  pass  from  one  school  to  another  and  find  them- 
selves perfectly  at  home,  irrespective  of  country.  Let  us 
recall  for  a  moment  what  the  University  of  Paris  contained 
when  the  famous  Dr.  Sigier  taught  in  the  Rue  du  Fouarre,  and 
a  haggard  Italian  exile  from  Florence,  whom  we  call  Dante, 
listened  to  his  lectures.  When  Albert  the  Great,  Aquinas, 
John  of  Salisbury,  Alighieri,  Roger  Bacon,  Alexander  of 
Hales,  Ockham,  Bonaventura,  Raymond  Lully,  met,  taught, 
or  exchanged  ideas,  no  man  dreamed  of  asking  if  the  professor 
or  the  pupil  were  German,  or  French,  or  English,  or  Italian, 
or  Spaniard.  That  was  a  detail  as  unimportant  as  his  native 
county  or  his  local  patois. 

They  all  talked  and  wrote  in  Latin,  pronouncing  it  in  the 
same  way,  and  they  accepted  one  type  of  culture,  regarding 
their  civil  allegiance  to  any  sovereign  lord  at  home  as  sub- 
ordinate to  their  spiritual  allegiance  to  Church  and  School. 
And  so,  when  Petrarch  left  Florence  for  the  valley  of  the 
Rhone  or  the  valley  of  the  Po ;  or  when  Chaucer  travelled  in 


204  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

Italy  and  came  home  with  the  glow  of  the  Decameron  colour- 
ing his  soul ;  or  when  Froissart  travelled  from  castle  to  abbey 
round  Europe,  and  was  at  home  in  every  hall  amongst 
knights,  ladies,  squires,  and  men-at-arms,  wherever  chivalry 
was  a  bond  of  intimacy,  from  the  Grampians  to  the  Pyre- 
nees and  the  Apennines ;  when  the  Troubadours  in  Western 
or  Meistersingers  in  Central  Europe  were  welcomed  in  every 
barony;  when  the  same  Romances,  the  same  Legends,  the 
same  Miracle  Plays  enchanted  the  audiences  throughout  all 
Europe  in  hall,  town,  abbey,  or  court  —  there  was  a  fellow- 
ship of  Thought  and  of  Art  that  we  have  lost  to-day. 

We  know  very  well  that  all  this  is  dead  and  buried,  and  we 
know  why  it  is  gone,  and  that  none  but  a  few  codini  and 
Jesuits  want  to  restore  it.  But  we  need  not  accentuate  the 
national  jealousies  which  make  such  an  inter-citizenship  im- 
possible to-day.  It  was  a  vast  gain  to  intellectual  progress, 
to  philosophy,  and  to  art,  to  have  a  common  language  in- 
telligible and  familiar  to  all  educated  men.  A  great  jurist 
remarked  recently  that  the  crucial  difficulty  in  the  way  of  a 
Code  of  English  Law  lay  in  the  want  of  a  strict  legal  tongue, 
and  in  the  indistinct  and  various  senses  with  which  the  same 
phrase  was  used  in  English  decisions  and  commentaries. 
This  is  true  of  philosophy,  of  theology,  of  art  amongst  us 
now,  especially  for  the  English  and  the  Teutonic  races.  A 
common  language  to-day  is  impossible,  if  for  no  other  reason 
than  that  each  of  the  great  nations  of  Europe  thinks  its  own 
national  tongue  ought  to  prevail,  and  in  any  case  declines  to 
admit  the  primacy  of  any  other  tongue.  So  we  learn  to  read 
each  others'  languages,  though  we  suffer  grievously  from 
wanting  the  precision  and  scientific  terminology  of  Latin. 
Anyway,  the  cosmopolitan  citizenship  of  the  Mediaeval  Uni- 
versity is  gone  for  ever,  for  the  same  reasons  that  Mediaeval 
Churchmanship  and  manners  are  gone.  We  cannot  help  it, 


THE  TRUE   COSMOPOLIS  205 

and  we  cannot  have  it  back.  Since  the  age  of  Louis  XI.  and 
Charles  V.,  the  Emperor,  we  have  been  settling  into  national, 
and  not  European  lines,  and  in  the  present  age  more  than 
ever.  The  enormous  increase  of  inter-communication  due 
to  steam,  electricity,  railways,  and  the  press  does  not  at  all 
counterbalance  the  great  increase  of  national  pride,  jealousy, 
and  self-assertion  fanned  by  patriotic  dreams  of  Empire, 
Victory,  and  Leadership  of  the  World.  This  is  the  ideal 
Culture  of  our  martial  and  aggressive  age,  and  it  is  ex  hy- 
pothesi  a  national  and  not  an  European  culture. 

Then  let  such  of  us  as  do  not  care  to  be  for  ever  bowing 
down  the  knee  in  the  Temple  of  Nike  Apteros,  or  of  the 
Athene  Pandemos  of  our  own  national  tribe,  offer  up  a 
prayer  from  time  to  time  before  the  altar  of  the  true  and 
general  Athene,  Goddess  of  Wisdom  and  of  healthy  Know- 
ledge, above  all  tribes  or  tongues.  We  are  as  true  patriots  as 
any :  we  will  suffer  no  man's  hand  to  be  raised  against  our 
Fatherland,  nor  endure  a  word  against  its  honour.  But  there 
is  something  more  than  Fatherland  and  wider  than  Patriotism. 
The  supreme  development  of  Humanity  in  all  forms  of  civ- 
ilisation needs  the  joint  co-operation  of  many  countries,  and 
would  languish  under  any  narrow  type  of  national  self-suffi- 
ciency. The  civilisation  of  Europe  was  assuredly  not  made 
by  one  nation,  and  it  cannot  be  developed  by  one  nation 
alone.  It  knows  nothing  of  nations,  of  national  tongues,  of 
national  schools.  In  one  department  of  thought  this  is 
abundantly  recognised.  The  physical  sciences  are  European. 
A  Darwin,  a  Helmholtz,  a  Pasteur,  are  of  all  nations,  all 
schools,  all  languages.  With  the  moral  sciences,  with  phi- 
losophy, with  politics,  with  criticism,  with  art,  it  is  far  other- 
wise. We  have  a  philosophy  far  too  local  in  its  language 
and  in  its  methods  and  aims ;  a  theology  and  an  ethic  which 
are  full  of  mere  tribal  antagonisms;  a  literature,  an  art,  a 


206  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

romance,  which  are  often  so  hide-bound  in  sectional  and  not 
human  conventions  and  interests  —  that  they  are  either  unin- 
telligible, insipid,  or  grotesque  to  readers  belonging  to  some 
other  party,  school,  or  sect,  and  seem  to  come  from  another 
race  familiar  with  different  types. 

THE  RENASCENCE 

When  the  Mediaeval  Church,  language,  education,  had 
passed  away,  there  arose  a  new  general  movement  of  ideas; 
the  Renascence  of  the  sixteenth  century,  which  is  so  absurdly 
known  by  the  French  form  of  its  name,  though  it  was  Italian 
in  origin  and  European  in  result.  Shakespeare  and  his  con- 
temporaries were  saturated  with  Italian  romance.  Marlowe 
and  Faustus,  Spenser  and  Ariosto,  Rabelais  and  Cervantes, 
remind  us  how  far  into  modern  times  extended  the  free- 
masonry of  the  common  genius  of  Europe.  Benvenuto 
Cellini,  the  very  much  spoilt  child  of  the  Renascence,  was  as 
free  of  every  great  house  in  Europe  as  a  German  fiddler  or 
an  American  globe-trotter  is  to-day.  No  doubt  Shakespeare 
knew  far  less  of  Italian  than  an  average  girl  in  a  high  school, 
and  even  Erasmus  or  the  Admirable  Crichton  —  nay,  Milton 
himself  —  were  infants  in  cosmopolitan  information  when 
compared  with  Doctor  Garnett  or  the  editors  of  The  Athe- 
ncRum  and  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes.  That  is  a  very  dif- 
ferent thing.  We  are  crammed  with  special  erudition.  We 
have  on  our  library  tables  the  Transactions  of  a  hundred 
learned  associations  in  eight  or  ten  different  languages.  But 
I  doubt  if  any  living  man  to-day,  whatever  his  genius  or  his 
learning,  feels  within  his  veins  the  throb  of  the  European 
life-blood  as  did  Shakespeare  or  Rubens,  Cellini,  Columbus, 
or  Raleigh. 

In  spite  of  all  the  national  and  religious  wars  of  the  six- 


THE   TRUE   COSMOPOLIS  207 

teenth  and  seventeenth  centuries,  philosophy  at  any  rate 
managed  to  be  neither  national  nor  sectarian,  and  Bruno, 
Descartes,  Hobbes,  Spinoza,  Grotius,  and  Leibnitz  rose  into 
the  empyrean  of  an  European  point  of  view.  The  intellec- 
tual commerce  between  Voltaire  and  his  eminent  country- 
men, with  England  on  the  one  hand  and  Germany  on  the 
other  hand,  is  one  of  the  great  landmarks  in  the  history  of 
modern  progress.  Trace  the  way  in  which  the  ideas  of 
Hume,  Gibbon,  Adam  Smith,  and  Bentham  were  received  in 
France ;  the  effect  upon  England  of  the  ideas  of  Montesquieu, 
of  Diderot,  Rousseau,  Voltaire,  and  Buffon;  the  union 
between  Germany  and  Italy  accomplished  by  Winckelmann, 
Lessing,  and  Goethe;  the  effect  upon  Italy  and  Greece  of 
Byron  and  his  fellow-enthusiasts;  the  effect  upon  Europe 
in  general  of  Newton,  of  Pascal,  of  Kant,  of  Vico,  of  Leibnitz, 
of  Hegel,  of  Comte  —  and  we  must  admit  that,  with  infinitely 
less  knowledge  of  each  others'  books  and  discoveries,  our  fore- 
fathers in  great  epochs  of  human  progress  had  a  greater 
effective  communion  of  ideas,  a  greater  intellectual  solidarity, 
than  we  see  to-day  in  Europe. 

One  department  of  thought  we  must  certainly  except 
from  this  judgment  —  that  of  the  exact  and  physical  sciences. 
The  European  influence  of  a  Darwin,  a  Helmholtz,  a  Pasteur, 
is  in  its  way  almost  equal  to  that  of  a  Newton,  a  Leibnitz,  a 
Lagrange.  Physical  science  has  now  no  native  country,  and 
the  true  European  communion  of  ideas  is  paramount  in  that 
sphere  of  thought.  There  may  be  rivalry  of  persons,  of 
schools,  of  methods  in  physical  science;  this  is  at  times 
most  shamefully  noisy  and  bitter;  but  there  is  practically 
in  physical  science  no  antagonism  of  nationality.  The  soli- 
darity of  work  is  almost  perfect.  Every  man  of  exact  science 
is  bound  to  read  the  principal  European  tongues,  and  to 
follow  the  records  of  advance  in  all  the  chief  European 


208  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

Transactions.  The  Rontgen  rays  of  physical  science  pierce 
the  boundaries  of  nations  as  easily  as  they  pass  through  the 
flesh  of  the  hand  or  a  wooden  box.  Exact  science  has  gained 
enormously  by  the  diffusion  of  books,  pa'pers,  and  instruments, 
and  all  the  cosmopolitan  appliances  of  the  Press.  This  alone 
of  all  the  departments  of  modern  thought  has  won  great  suc- 
cess from  our  material  civilisation,  and  yet  has  lost  nothing 
by  our  national  rivalries. 

Now,  why  is  it  that  in  philosophy,  in  the  moral  and  social 
sciences,  in  art,  we  fail  to  find  the  same  solidarity,  the  same 
European  consensus  of  thought?  The  answer  is  plain. 
Philosophy,  moral  and  social  science,  even  art,  touch  our 
pride,  our  passions,  our  ideals  of  life,  in  a  manner  that  exact 
science  does  not.  Exact  science,  with  its  dry  light,  does  not 
stir  emotions,  disturb  habits  of  conduct  and  standards  of 
judgment,  appeal  to  national  ambitions  or  foibles.  The  dis- 
covery of  the  cholera  bacillus  or  the  geography  of  Mars  can- 
not possibly  kindle  the  fires  of  theological  and  political 
animosity.  But  a  new  theory  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels,  an 
original  view  in  the  philosophy  of  Economics,  a  history  of 
the  French  Revolution,  or  of  Europe  in  the  Nineteenth  Cen- 
tury, instantly  appeals  either  to  odium  theologicum,  to  the 
claims  of  the  Churches  and  the  hopes  of  their  rivals,  to  the 
perennial  war  between  Labour  and  Capital,  or  to  the  rancour 
of  parties  and  the  glorification  of  national  triumphs.  Take 
Mr.  Ruskin  to  the  Salon  in  Paris,  and  show  him  the  colossal 
"Massacres,"  "Slave  Markets,"  "Temptations  of  St.  An- 
thony," and  similar  canvases  with  acres  of  gore  and  nudity, 
and  we  should  have  him  deliver  a  prophetic  homily  worthy 
of  Jeremiah  at  the  Court  of  Jehoiakim.  Ask  Mr.  Lecky  to 
write  us  a  review  of  Karl  Marx,  or  the  Bishop  of  Peterborough 
to  write  the  history  of  the  Papacy  during  the  last  half -century, 
or  beg  the  Academic  Francaise  to  explain  why  they  did  not 


THE   TRUE   COSMOPOLIS  209 

elect  M.  Zola  —  we  should  then  have  something  that  would 
be  highly  entertaining,  but  would  not  tend  to  consolidate 
opinions  in  any  European  eirenicon  of  the  higher  criticism. 
We  think,  we  teach,  we  write,  we  paint  too  much  on  sec- 
tional lines;  and  in  our  very  philosophy,  our  history,  our 
art,  we  are  thinking  first  of  our  national  Flag,  and  only 
secondly  of  the  vanguard  of  human  civilisation. 

There  can  be  as  little  doubt  that  this  is  so  to-day,  in  a 
measure  which  some  fortunate  ages  have  been  without,  as 
there  can  be  doubt  to  what  it  may  be  ascribed  as  a  cause. 
The  tremendous  national  wars  that  have  been  waged  in 
Europe  in  the  last  forty-three  years  were  on  a  scale  more  vast 
than  anything  known  in  Europe  except  in  the  age  of  Napoleon. 
It  is  true  that  most  of  these  wars  have  been  comparatively 
short.  But  they  have  called  to  arms  so  large  a  proportion  of 
the  entire  population;  they  have  led  to  such  vast  material 
efforts  and  changes;  they  have  caused  such  intense  spasms 
of  patriotism  and  humiliation  down  to  the  very  depths  of  the 
national  feeling,  that  they  have  affected  the  temper  of  the 
nations  of  Europe  perhaps  in  a  degree  hardly  ever  before 
known.  The  fact  of  war  is  far  the  least  part  of  the  phenome- 
non. The  wars  have  not  been  long;  and  even  the  material 
losses  and  ravages  of  war  have  been  replaced  in  five  or  ten 
years  at  the  most.  But  they  have  led,  even  in  time  of  un- 
broken peace  and  entente  cordiale,  to  such  huge  and  increas- 
ing armaments,  they  have  stimulated  national  ambitions  so 
fiercely,  and  they  have  so  deeply  infected  the  minds  of  all 
citizens  alike  with  ideas  of  national  aggrandisement  or  defence 
as  the  primary  concern  of  a  patriot,  that  they  have  inevitably 
tended  to  accentuate  the  national  point  of  view  and  to  weaken 
the  European  consensus  of  ideas  —  always,  as  I  have  said, 
with  the  exception  of  physical  science. 

I  am  old  enough  to  remember  the  time  when  influential 


210  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

schools  of  opinion  and  eminent  men  in  England  were  deeply 
influenced  by  French  thought,  especially  in  things  social, 
historical,  political,  and  critical.  They  were  the  days  of 
Guizot,  De  Tocqueville,  Hugo,  and  Sainte-Beuve.  In  those 
days  there  still  was  a  similar  movement  in  France  towards 
England,  and  many  men  of  great  mark  were  foolishly  nick- 
named "  Anglomanes."  I  remember  dear  old  M.  Barthelemy 
St.  Hilaire  telling  me  in  1895  —  the  last  year  of  his  long  life  — 
that  he  now  stood  alone  in  his  desire  for  cordial  relations  and 
common  sympathies  between  our  two  peoples.  In  the  time 
when  Bismarck  was  carving,  not  the  map  of  Europe,  but  his 
fellow-students'  cheeks  and  noses,  there  were  "Gallomanes" 
in  the  Fatherland,  where  now  no  German  can  eat  his  dinner 
with  a  menu  in  French.  Englishmen,  Frenchmen,  and  Ger- 
mans of  course  still  read  each  other's  books;  correspond, 
meet,  and  discuss  as  much  as  ever,  and  perhaps  more.  But 
the  Englishman  who  is  in  admiring  sympathy  with  French 
ideas,  or  the  Frenchman  who  loves  to  steep  his  spirit  in  Ger- 
man ideas,  or  the  German  who  is  "Gallomane"  or  "Anglo- 
mane,"  or  the  educated  Englishman,  or  Frenchman,  or  Ger- 
man whose  intellectual  Alma  Mater  is  the  "Cosmopolis"  of 
European  thought  —  is,  I  firmly  believe,  far  more  rare  than 
ever  he  was. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  suggest  any  doubts  as  to  the  neces- 
sity for  our  mighty  armaments  on  land  and  sea ;  and  I  for  one 
claim  to  be  as  fervent  a  patriot  as  any  of  my  neighbours.  To 
pretend  to  be  "  Cosmopolitan,"  and  superior  to  Country,  is 
a  puerile  affectation  for  which  I  have  neither  sympathy  nor 
mercy.  As  a  Nationalist  by  conviction,  I  hold  that  Govern- 
ments and  States  cannot  be  too  entirely  national  for  all 
political  purposes,  or  too  absolutely  capable  of  defending 
their  own  nationality.  But  the  interests  of  intellectual  Prog- 
ress are  not  confined  within  any  boundaries  of  nation,  and  will 


THE    TRUE   COSMOPOLIS  211 

assuredly  be  atrophied  by  any  such  narrow  limitations.  It 
deeply  concerns  all  those  who  have  at  heart  the  true  interests 
of  intellectual  Progress  to  strive  to  counteract  the  tendencies 
towards  national  jealousy  and  depreciation  fomented  by  an 
age  of  gigantic  preparations  for  war  and  the  passion  for 
commercial  and  political  supremacy.  Our  knowledge  of  the 
literature  of  Europe,  and  our  elaborate  study  of  the  last  new 
work  of  the  foreign  Press,  have  too  much  of  the  character 
expressed  by  the  old  saying  that  "Familiarity  breeds  con- 
tempt." We  need  somewhat  more  of  that  sacred  light  of 
sympathy  which  inspired  Diderot,  Voltaire,  and  Montesquieu, 
and  made  them  more  than  Frenchmen ;  which  inspired  Locke, 
Hume,  and  Gibbon,  and  made  them  more  than  Englishmen ; 
which  inspired  Leibnitz,  Lessing,  and  Goethe,  and  made  them 
more  than  Germans. 

It  is  true  that  very  great  mistakes  were  made  in  former 
ages  by  hollow  or  premature  enthusiasms,  and  we  do  not 
wish  to  have  them  repeated.  We  want  no  "  Anglomanes  " 
nor  "  Gallomanes,"  nor  "  Inglesi  Italianati,"  nor  Teutonic 
"Welt-Gcist"  of  any  kind.  The  spurious  and  spasmodic 
fashion  which  suddenly  discovers  in  another  country  a  man 
of  genius  or  a  new  school  of  thought  or  art  is  a  very  short- 
lived thing;  it  does  nothing  but  harm  to  the  country  whence 
it  is  imported  as  to  the  country  which  adopts  it.  Ibsen, 
Tolstoi,  and  Zola  are  undoubtedly  men  of  genius ;  but  their 
reputation  would  be  both  more  solid  and  more  enduring  if 
they  had  not  been  acclaimed  by  fanatical  schools  of  followers 
as  the  evangelists  of  some  new  gospel  that  was  to  revolutionise 
human  art.  Ibsen  suffers  from  his  Ibsenites,  Zola  from  his 
Zolaists,  and  Tolstoi  from  Tolstoyans. 

We  are  often  told  that  the  wonderful  development  of  travel 
in  these  days  is  a  sovereign  specific  to  make  people  of  differ- 
ent nations  understand  each  other  better,  and  that  the  multi- 


212  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

plication  of  railways,  telegraphs,  excursion  tours,  and  postal 
facib'ties  must  end  in  establishing  a  family  feeling  —  the  true 
solidarity  and  fraternity  of  peoples.  It  is  a  pleasing  hope; 
but  after  a  generation  of  Cooke's  and  Gaze's  and  other  tourist 
companies,  after  "World  Exhibitions"  and  "Cosmopolitan 
Fairs"  in  every  capital  of  the  East  and  the  West,  and  a  series 
of  the  "Greatest  Shows  on  Earth"  in  every  ambitious  town 
of  Europe  and  America,  the  jaded  excursionist  comes  home 
rather  to  grumble  than  to  praise ;  and,  somewhat  poorer  both 
in  purse  and  good  nature,  he  is  just  in  the  mood  to  increase 
his  armaments  at  home.  The  American  globe-trotter  who 
bragged  that,  in  his  voyage  round  the  Mediterranean,  "he 
had  given  seven  hours  to  the  Eternal  City,"  brought  away 
but  few  new  ideas  as  to  the  Quirinal  or  the  Vatican.  And  the 
English  millionaire  who  reminded  his  courier  "that  they  must 
not  leave  Rome  without  seeing  the  Colosseum"  did  not  really 
assimilate  much  of  the  true  genius  of  Italy. 

It  is  no  paradox  to  maintain  that  the  great  labour  and  slow 
course  of  travel  in  former  ages  really  promoted  a  more  thorough 
and  intimate  knowledge  of  the  country  and  the  people  where 
the  traveller  —  as  distinct  from  the  tourist  —  chose  to  wend 
his  way.  Travelling  went  out  with  railways.  We  are  all 
tourists  now,  and  tourists  who  come  home  with  tales  of  the 
chef  at  the  "  Metropole  "  and  the  rifling  of  one's  boxes  on  those 
Mediterranean  lines.  When  Dante  and  Chaucer,  Froissart 
or  Cellini,  travelled  in  Europe,  they  had  a  far  harder  task; 
but  they  really  lived  amongst  the  people  they  visited.  Milton 
only  travelled  once  in  Italy,  and  Voltaire  only  came  once  to 
England;  and  Goethe,  Byron,  and  Shelley  never  saw  a 
tenth  part  of  the  countries  that  any  Oxford  tutor  scampers 
across  in  a  few  vacations.  But  these  men  took  time,  took 
pains,  found  means  to  be  admitted  into  the  societies  they 
met,  and  lived  long  enough  in  each  place  to  saturate  them- 


THE  TRUE   COSMOPOLIS  213 

Selves  with  its  spirit.  Nowadays  we  have  journalists,  diplo- 
mats, book-makers  (in  both  senses  of  the  word),  miscellane- 
ous men-about-town,  who  live  in  railway  trains,  like  the 
stokers  or  the  guards,  and  who  know  as  much  of  the  countries 
they  "travel  in"  as  if  they  had  crossed  them  in  balloons,  get- 
ting up  "Baedeker"  as  they  sailed  along. 

When  we  read  an  old  book  of  real  "travels,"  such  as 
Goethe's  Italian  Journey,  or  Gibbon's  Memoir  of  my  Life,  or 
even,  of  our  own  age,  those  exquisite  pictures  of  foreign  life 
in  Ruskin's  Prceterita  and  his  Modern  Painters  or  Stones  of 
Venice,  we  see  how  the  incessant  whirl  of  locomotion  that  we 
absurdly  call  "travelling"  has  actually  robbed  us  of  all  real 
intercourse  with  foreign  nations.  Parcels  forwarded  by  the 
post  do  not  "travel."  An  active  man  of  means  and  leisure 
(some  of  them  even  without  either  means  or  leisure)  will 
make  twenty,  thirty,  or  forty  "tours  abroad"  of  a  month  or 
two  at  a  time,  yet  he  will  know  less  of  other  nations  at  the  end 
of  his  life  than  if,  with  fit  introductions,  he  had  spent  one  six 
months  rationally  in  any  European  centre.  He  will  know 
less ;  but  what  is  worse,  he  will  come  back  with  feelings  more 
akin  to  antipathy  than  sympathy  —  a  more  violent  Jingo 
than  he  went  forth.  He  has  seen  enough  to  despise,  to  pity, 
or  to  dislike.  He  has  not  seen  enough  to  know,  to  under- 
stand, to  enjoy.  He  likes  mountains,  pictures,  promenades, 
and  casinos.  "He  never  took  to  the  queer  ways  of  the 
natives  I" 

We  have  just  been  celebrating  (with  trumpets  attuned  to  a 
somewhat  minor  key)  the  Jubilee  of  Free  Trade;  and  the 
rare  foreign  Abdiels,  still  faithful  to  that  great  economic 
cause,  have  crossed  the  Channel  to  record  their  loyalty  to  the 
faith.  Rational  Englishmen  are  as  staunch  to  the  creed  as 
ever.  But  they  mournfully  admit  that  they  stand  alone. 
They  have,  with  pain,  to  confess  how  strange  were  the  illu- 


214  MEMORIES  AND  THOUGHTS 

sions  that  floated  before  Richard  Cobden  and  his  fellow- 
apostles  when  they  looked  to  an  increase  in  trade  relations  as 
certain  to  reduce  armaments,  and  diminish  international 
animosities.  It  was  a  dream  from  the  ivory  gate.  Com- 
merce, trade,  and  international  intercourse  have  been  multi- 
plied threefold;  but  they  have  brought  neither  Free  Trade 
nor  Peace  into  the  world.  Yet  by  all  the  rules  of  logic,  of 
common  sense,  and  of  obvious  interests,  they  should  have 
brought  both.  Cobden  and  Bright  were  right  in  their  facts 
and  correct  in  their  reasoning.  Free  Trade  is  our  true  inter- 
est —  the  true  interest  of  all  settled  peoples.  And  common 
material" interests  infallibly  favour  a  policy  of  peace  and  of 
friendship.  It  is  as  certain  and  universal  as  the  Law  of 
Gravitation.  Yet  the  predicted  result  did  not  follow. 

Cobden  and  Bright  and  the  apostles  of  Free  Trade  did  not 
foresee  —  no  man  could  foresee  —  other  and  stronger  forces 
which  neutralised  the  influence  of  material  interests  and  over- 
rode the  communion  of  business  relations.  Charles  Kingsley, 
and  some  men  of  greater  genius,  have  gravely  informed  us 
that  the  Law  of  Gravitation  is  at  times  "suspended"  by  some 
occult  power  that  desires  to  impress  us.  The  advent  of  Free 
Trade  and  its  beneficial  issue  in  a  millennium  of  Peace  was 
not  indeed  "suspended,"  but  it  really  was  adjourned  by  the 
direct  operation  of  a  higher  and  stronger  law.  That  law  was 
the  passion  of  national  ascendancy  and  the  glory  of  military 
triumphs.  Mankind  are  governed  more  by  their  passions, 
sentiments,  traditions,  than  by  their  interests  and  even  their 
well-being.  The  great  cause  of  International  Free  Trade, 
the  far  greater  cause  of  International  Sympathy,  has  been 
postponed  into  the  centuries  to  come  by  a  recrudescence  of  the 
warlike  energies  and  the  fierce  race  for  primacy  amongst  the 
nations.  The  interests  of  Trade  are  even  become  the  bar  to 
Peace,  the  stimulus  to  War. 


THE  TRUE  COSMOPOLIS  21$ 

IMPERIALISM 

It  would  be  a  long  story  to  trace  the  rise,  growth,  and 
culmination  of  this  mighty  power  over  a  period  now  of  some 
fifty  years,  till  it  led  to  a  renewal  of  European  wars  after  a 
long  peace  of  nearly  forty  years.  The  revival  of  material 
prosperity  that  the  era  of  Free  Trade  opened  did  not  a  little 
to  stimulate  the  growth  of  military  and  national  ambition. 
The  revolutionary  upheaval  of  1848-49  was  at  bottom  the 
uprising  of  wealth  and  of  labour  against  the  worm-eaten 
absolutisms  of  Europe.  Free  Trade,  no  doubt,  saved  Eng- 
land from  the  violent  struggles  which  went  round  Europe. 
The  monarchies,  the  aristocracies,  the  governments  of  the 
Continent  made  a  desperate  rally,  and  entirely  recast  their 
civil  and  military  organisation.  The  arts,  and  even  the 
engines  and  machinery  of  war  by  land  and  sea,  took  a  fresh 
departure  soon  after  the  revolutionary  epoch  and  the  reor- 
ganisation of  governments  and  armaments  which  was  repre- 
sented by  the  Third  Empire  in  France.  Rifled  guns,  breech- 
loading  guns,  large  and  small,  the  concentration  of  armies  by 
railways,  rapid  "mobilisation,"  steamships  of  battle,  ar- 
moured vessels,  the  marine  screw-propeller,  big  cannon,  shell 
projectiles,  machine  guns,  and  all  the  scientific  appliances  of 
modern  fortresses  and  modern  ships  of  war,  began  to  be  in 
use  soon  after  this  epoch.  Those  of  us  who  can  remember 
Brown  Besst?  the  old  solid  column  of  attack,  men-of-war 
propelled  by  sails,  having  seventy-four  guns  muzzle-loading 
with  round  shot,  —  these  have  seen,  as  compared  with  the 
armies  and  fleets  of  to-day,  perhaps  the  greatest,  and  cer- 
tainly the  most  sudden,  change  in  the  arts  of  war  that  the 
world  has  ever  witnessed,  at  any  rate  since  the  introduction 
of  gunpowder.  A  single  first-rate  ship  to-day  would  sink  in 
an  hour  the  entire  fleet  commanded  in  the  Crimean  War  by 


2l6  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

Napier  or  Lord  Lyons,  and  Napier  and  Lyons  would  be  less 
able  to  command  such  a  ship  than  the  lowest  lieutenant  in 
the  navy. 

From  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  reorganisa- 
tion of  civil  administration  and  the  adoption  of  modern 
scientific  methods  went  on  nearly  as  fast,  so  that  at  the  date 
of  the  Crimean  War  the  Powers  of  Western  Europe,  with 
Italy  added  to  their  circle,  found  themselves  in  possession  of 
vast  organised  forces,  both  military,  marine,  and  civil,  which 
had  been  rusting  in  store,  as  it  were,  for  the  long  peace  of  forty 
years  from  the  fall  of  the  First  Napoleon.  The  command  of 
such  tremendous  armies,  fleets,  and  budgets,  and  the  knitting 
up  of  the  nerves  of  national  cohesion  everywhere,  roused  new 
ambitions  and  led  to  distant  adventures.  The  formidable 
mutiny  and  resettlement  of  India,  the  opening  of  Burmah, 
China,  and  Japan  to  Western  arms  and  commerce,  gave  a 
warlike  turn  to  commercial  enterprise.  The  revival  of 
Imperialism  and  the  splendid  armies  of  France  led  directly 
to  the  war  with  Austria  and  kindled  the  natural  jealousies  and 
ambition  of  Prussia.  The  Danish  war,  the  Austrian  war, 
the  French  war,  followed  in  the  next  decade.  And  through- 
out the  generation  that  succeeded  the  Franco- German  war 
of  1870-71,  the  nations  of  Europe  have  been  industriously 
augmenting  their  already  tremendous  military  resources, 
whilst  fiercely  competing  in  a  race  with  each  other,  half 
military,  half  commercial,  to  extend  their  Empires  and  their 
markets  in  Asia,  in  Africa,  and  in  the  seas  of  both  Hemi- 
spheres. It  is  little  cause  for  wonder,  then,  if,  in  the  array  of 
such  rival  forces,  the  cause  of  Free  Trade  stagnates,  the  cause 
of  International  Friendship  wanes. 

The  key  to  all  rational  estimate  of  European,  and  even 
domestic  politics,  is  to  recognise  that  the  dominant  factor  in 
politics  to-day  is  the  passion  of  national  self-assertion,  the 


THE  TRUE   COSMOPOLIS  217 

struggle  for  national  primacy.  For  right  or  for  wrong,  the 
great  nations  were  all  resolved  to  make  themselves,  without 
more  delay,  as  big  as  they  can  be  made ;  as  formidable,  as 
extensive,  as  rich  as  science  or  energy  can  make  them ;  or  at 
least  to  tolerate  no  other  nation  bigger  than  themselves.  For 
this  they  are  ready  to  sacrifice  everything  at  home  or  abroad 
• —  their  traditions,  their  safety,  their  credit,  and  almost  their 
honour.  This,  and  this  alone,  has  planted  in  England  the 
most  powerful  Conservative  Government  ever  seen  in  our 
age.  This  has  made  the  Republic  in  France  frantically 
acclaim  the  fleets  and  servants  of  a  despotic  Tsar.  This  has 
made  Prussia  aspire  to  be  a  great  naval  power  —  a  great 
African  power.  This  has  made  Italy  the  enemy  of  France, 
Austria  the  friend  of  the  Turk,  and  Russia  the  indifferent 
witness  to  the  massacre  of  Armenian  Christians.  The  private 
seeker  of  fortune  may  say,  Rem,  quocunque  modo  rem.  The 
cry  of  the  Nations  is  rather,  "Empire,  at  whatever  cost,  at 
whatever  risk,  by  whatever  folly!" 

There  are,  therefore,  deep  down  in  the  heart  of  the  great 
nations  of  Europe,  overwhelming  national  tendencies  which 
foster  international  jealousies  and  neutralise  cordial  relations, 
even  in  matters  of  intellect  and  taste.  Physical  science  alone, 
with  its  appeal  to  material  fact,  is  exempt  from  the  effect 
of  prejudice.  The  moral  sciences,  opinions,  art,  are  far  too 
liable  to  suffer  from  the  contamination  of  political  rivalry. 
And  it  behoves  all  those  who  (apart  from  the  strife  of  politics) 
devote  their  lives  to  the  moral  sciences,  to  history,  philosophy, 
criticism,  or  art,  to  clear  their  own  field,  their  own  minds, 
from  the  narrow  prejudices  of  national  chauvinism.  Phi- 
losophy, social  and  moral  science,  the  pursuit  of  truth,  the 
creation  of  the  beautiful,  have  no  exclusive  country ;  and  they 
are  often  conspicuously  fostered  in  the  smallest  countries, 
as  far  removed  as  possible  from  the  roar  of  big  capitals  and 


218  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

the  passions  of  dominant  empires.  How  many  of  the  best 
minds,  how  much  of  the  immortal  work  of  the  world,  came 
from  solitary  retreats  into  which  no  passion  of  national  vain- 
glory and  jealousy  was  suffered  to  enter.  Dante,  Petrarch, 
Tasso,  Byron,  Shelley,  were  exiles,  or  sojourners  in  homes 
not  their  own.  Erasmus,  Descartes,  Hobbes,  Locke,  Diderot, 
Voltaire,  Priestley,  Gibbon,  did  much  of  their  best  work  in 
foreign  lands  or  in  distant  retreats.  The  philosopher,  the 
historian,  the  poet,  the  romancer,  the  artist,  need  always  to 
have  before  them  an  ideal  of  the  best  —  the  best  that  ever  has 
been  —  the  best  that  they  can  give.  And  this  best  never  is, 
never  can  be,  in  a  narrow  sense,  national.  This  is  the  true 
COSMOPOLIS  ! 


THE  REGRETS  OF  A  VETERAN 
TRAVELLER 

1887 

WE  are  wont  to  smile  over  the  fantastic  but  exquisite 
egoism  with  which  Mr.  Ruskin  in  Pr&terita  records  his  boyish 
reminiscences  of  travel;  but  to  any  one  who  can  remember 
what  Europe  was  some  forty  years  ago  there  come  similar 
hours  of  despondency  and  keen  regret.  Railways,  telegraphs, 
and  circular  tours  in  twenty  days  have  opened  to  the  million 
the  wonders  of  foreign  parts.  But  have  they  not  sown  broad- 
cast disfigurement,  vulgarity,  stupidity,  demoralisation? 
Europe  is  changed  indeed  since  the  unprogressive  forties ! 
Is  it  all  for  the  better?  I  have  no  theories,  no  parable  to 
take  up,  as  Mr.  Ruskin  has;  nor  do  I  doubt  that  Watt, 
Stephenson,  and  Wheatstone  were  benefactors  of  mankind. 
But  as  I  sit  here,  penned  in  my  Alpine  nest  by  a  snowstorm, 
a  few  vain  regrets  will  thrust  themselves  on  the  mind. 

It  is  a  moral  change  no  less  than  a  material  change.  True, 
one  goes  by  steam  in  place  of  coach  or  boat;  and  lovers  of 
the  beautiful  and  the  characteristic  may  well  regret  all  that 
they  lose  thereby.  But  this  loss  is  not  a  moral  evil,  nor  is  it 
compulsory.  Mr.  Ruskin  can  still  drive  (if  it  pleases  him) 
in  his  own  carriage  from  Calais  to  Venice.  I  go  myself  not 
unwillingly  by  rail;  even  though  I  can  remember  how 
delightfully  one  used  to  drive  by  the  high  road  into  Rouen, 
Geneva,  Milan,  or  Florence.  Ah !  for  the  crack  of  the  whip 

219 


220  MEMORIES  AND    THOUGHTS 

as  one  galloped  down  those  Norman  glades  that  shelve  into 
the  Seine,  and  for  the  sight  of  the  sun  rising  in  gorgeous  wrath 
over  the  chain  of  Mont  Blanc,  as  we  toiled  up  the  crest  of  the 
Jura  in  the  twilight ;  for  the  white  oxen  who  tugged  as  leaders 
up  the  steep  slopes  of  the  Apennines,  and  the  chat  with  the 
village  gossips  at  each  post  station;  the  midday  halt,  where 
one  dived  into  castle,  church,  or  old  courtyard,  the  postillion 
lore  of  many  countries,  the  chaffering  for  some  local  trifle, 
the  queer  but  not  untoothsome  supper,  the  antique  furniture 
of  the  salon,  the  early  walk  before  the  horses  were  harnessed, 
the  local  colour  at  every  turn  from  morn  till  night  —  it  is  all 
gone.  And  we  are  carried  now  to  Geneva  or  Milan  like  a 
box  of  game  from  Aberdeen  to  London.  But  there  are 
changes  far  more  profound. 

Those  who  remember  Europe  before  the  Third  Empire 
and  the  great  wars  of  the  last  five-and-thirty  years,  know  how 
deeply  the  outward  intercourse  of  nations  has  been  altered 
by  all  that  has  happened  since  '48.  The  Englishman  who 
travelled  then  did  not  feel  himself  as  in  a  mere  time  of  truce 
in  the  midst  of  a  war  of  races.  The  Frenchman  was  chatty, 
gay,  outwardly  courteous  to  all,  and  inwardly  full  of  bright 
views  of  himself  and  his  great  nation.  The  German  gave 
himself  no  airs,  being  perfectly  happy  if  he  could  save  some 
thalers  by  his  superior  information,  and  willing  at  all  times 
to  impart  to  all  he  met  his  inexhaustible  stores  of  erudition 
and  original  views  on  things  human  and  divine.  The  Italian 
was  not  a  traveller.  But  the  Italian  or  the  Russian,  if  we 
met  him,  was  the  easiest  and  most  versatile  of  travelling  com- 
panions. Time  was  when  travellers  who  supped  at  the  same 
table  could  talk  quite  naturally  to  each  other  in  any  language 
that  served  best,  when  Englishmen  did  not  stare  at  their 
countrymen  much  as  undergraduates  stare  at  "an  out-college 
man":  when  Frenchmen  and  Germans  discussed  the  beau- 


REGRETS  OF  A  VETERAN  TRAVELLER       221 

ties  of  the  Rhine,  and  when  it  was  not  an  impertinence  to 
address  to  a  stranger  a  remark  about  the  weather.  All  that 
is  over.  Wars,  annexations,  revolutions,  race  jealousies, 
railways,  circular  tours,  Harry  and  Betsy  Jane,  have  made 
an  end  of  that.  We  consort  with  those  of  our  own  nation 
only,  and  with  much  hesitation  and  doubt  even  with  them. 
Germans,  Frenchmen,  English,  Russians,  or  Italians  take 
their  pleasure  sadly  in  foreign  parts,  and  in  strict  national 
lines.  There  are  English,  German,  and  French  resorts ;  Eng- 
lish, German,  and  French  hotels  in  the  same  place ;  English, 
German,  and  French  tables  in  the  same  room.  You  may 
see  English,  German,  and  French  families  pass  many  weeks 
together  in  the  same  house,  eat  thrice  a  day  at  the  same  table, 
and  sit  for  hours  in  the  same  salons  without  ever  exchanging 
a  chance  word.  This  is  not  from  want  of  a  common  lan- 
guage ;  for,  as  we  all  know,  Germans  are  usually  as  much 
at  home  in  our  language  as  in  any  other,  and  most  people 
who  travel  habitually  speak  at  least  some  French.  No,  it  is 
-national  and  political  jealousy,  a  deep  consciousness  that 
neither  sympathy  nor  fair  judgment  exists  any  longer  between 
the  nations  of  Europe.  Forty  years  ago  an  Englishman,  a 
German,  a  Frenchman,  and  a  Russian,  who  passed  twelve 
hours  together  in  the  same  carriage  or  inn,  were  rather  will- 
ing than  otherwise  to  exchange  a  few  impressions.  And  such 
to  this  day  is  the  tone  of  the  average  American.  While  all 
his  European  contemporaries  have  good  reasons  for  keep- 
ing their  own  counsel,  our  American  fellow-traveller  is  as 
good-tempered  as  ever;  affable,  self-satisfied,  and  buoyantly 
at  home.  He  has  no  disasters  in  wars  or  in  diplomacy  to  for- 
get, no  pretensions  to  assert,  and  no  enemies  to  fear.  He  has 
annexed  no  provinces,  paid  no  milliards,  fought  no  battles 
except  with  his  own  dear  brothers  at  home;  he  is  building 
no  fortresses,  forging  no  guns,  nor  running  amuck  through 


222  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

the  Press  of  Europe.  He  is  perfectly  satisfied  with  his  own 
national  position,  nor  does  he  doubt  a  moment  that  any  one 
can  misunderstand  it.  He  is  consequently  as  completely  at 
his  ease  with  foreigners  of  every  nation  as  a  rational  traveller 
ought  to  be,  and  as  forty  years  ago  an  English  traveller  used 
to  be ;  and,  as  far  as  his  meagre  linguistic  attainments  carry 
him,  he  is,  nationally  and  socially,  open  to  converse  with  ah1 
whom  he  meets. 

It  is  hardly  in  human  nature  to  expect  such  ease  from 
a  Frenchman.  Sedan,  Metz,  Strasburg,  and  milliards  are 
eternally  on  his  soul;  revolutions,  communes,  proscriptions, 
and  party  animosities  make  him  as  silent  with  his  own  nation 
as  with  others.  Political  causes  have  led  to  a  singular  change. 
The  average  Frenchman  has  lost  his  manners,  and  with  his 
manners  his  liveliness,  his  happy  opinion  of  himself,  and  his 
flow  of  speech.  Out  of  his  own  set  or  party  he  is  morose, 
taciturn,  uneasy,  and  ill-bred.  Hazard  a  few  words  about 
the  weather,  and  his  second  sentence  will  relate  to  the  fogs 
of  London  (of  which  he  has  read  in  his  pet  feuilleton) ;  ask 
him  to  pass  you  the  mustard,  and  he  will  inquire  if  the  fa- 
vourite dish  of  the  English  is  still  raw  beef.  If  a  German  sits 
down  at  the  same  table,  you  are  almost  glad  to  observe  that 
the  knives  and  forks  abroad  are  so  blunt.  In  short,  the 
Frenchman  conducts  himself  generally  like  a  man  who  has 
been  declared  a  defaulter  at  his  club.  The  consequence  is 
that  the  Frenchman  abroad  is  too  often  a  melancholy,  silent, 
uncompanionable  man. 

The  German  abroad  is  almost  as  reserved  as  the  French- 
man ;  but  it  is  not,  at  any  rate,  from  wounded  pride.  He  is 
aware  that  by  many  he  is  not  loved,  and  he  gently  enjoys  the 
sensation.  He  is  quite  sure  that  intellectually,  materially, 
and  artistically  he  stands  before  all  the  nations  on  earth,  and, 
as  he  knows  that  his  claims  are  beyond  dispute,  he  needs  no 


REGRETS  OF   A  VETERAN  TRAVELLER  223 

pretensions  of  his  to  assert  them.  The  inexplicable  verve  of 
the  Frenchman,  the  versatile  energy  of  the  Englishman,  are 
very  well  in  their  way,  but  as  nations  they  are  both  second- 
rate.  If  they  decline  to  associate  with  him  on  this  under- 
standing he  declines  to  associate  at  all.  The  war  with  France 
and  the  reconstitution  of  the  German  social  economy  have 
produced  a  great  change  in  German  society.  The  German 
middle  class  is  no  longer  poor,  and  not  at  all  disposed  to  put 
up  with  anything  second  best.  It  is  more  enterprising,  more 
lavish,  more  cultivated  than  the  corresponding  class  in 
France ;  and  if  not  quite  so  numerous,  or  so  wealthy,  or  so 
restless  as  that  of  England,  it  has  far  more  real  education, 
taste,  and  industry. 

The  Germans,  therefore,  with  their  newly-acquired  wealth, 
their  skill  and  general  enterprise,  are  in  neutral  countries 
like  the  Alps  almost  the  rivals  in  travel  of  the  English.  They 
spend  nearly  as  much,  they  are  almost  as  numerous,  they 
have  everything  almost  as  good,  and  they  are  far  more  really 
accomplished  travellers.  It  must  be  admitted  that  their  man- 
ners are  not  yet  equal  to  their  essential  culture.  The  German 
of  the  higher  class  is  poor,  he  travels  little,  and  he  does  not 
form  the  manners  of  the  mercantile  and  professional  class. 
The  middle-class  Englishman,  whose  horror  is  the  knife  to 
the  mouth,  the  spittoon  in  the  salon,  and  sundry  eccentricities 
of  habit  and  dress,  is  too  often  disposed  to  undervalue  his 
German  fellow-traveller,  though  in  knowledge,  culture,  and 
just  self-respect  the  German  is  much  his  superior.  Now  the 
middle-class  German  is  far  too  acute  not  to  feel  that,  in  refine- 
ment of  manner  and  person,  both  he  and  she  have  still  some- 
thing to  learn,  but  as  a  member  of  the  nation  which  leads  the 
van  of  European  civilisation  he  and  she  are  far  too  proud  to 
acknowledge  it.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Englishman  of  the 
middle  class,  who  is  apt  to  take  the  conventional  habits  of 


224  MEMORIES   AND    THOUGHTS 

his  own  aristocracy  for  real  good  breeding,  very  much  exag- 
gerates such  superiority  in  refinement  as  he  may  happen 
to  possess  with  respect  to  his  German  neighbour.  Wealth, 
power,  knowledge  of  all  sorts,  the  German  knows  that  he  has. 
He  is  not  at  all  disposed  to  be  snubbed  by  living  man  or 
woman,  nor  in  any  place  or  way  will  he  now  be  relegated  to 
the  second  class.  The  Englishman  too  often  has  silly  school- 
boy prejudices  about  what  he  calls  "Continental  habits," 
sometimes  things  perfectly  innocent  and  natural  in  them- 
selves. Very  properly,  Continentals  decline  to  recognise  the 
schoolboy  standard  of  manners,  and  the  general  code  of  what 
is,  and  what  is  not,  "swagger."  Hence  comes  it  that  trav- 
elling is  very  much  less  sociable  and  cheerful  than  it  was. 
Germans,  French,  and  English  practically  hold  no  inter- 
course. The  Frenchman's  tongue  is  tied ;  the  German  no 
longer  instructs  us  with  his  vast  erudition  and  complacent 
affability;  the  Englishman  no  longer  comports  himself  as  if 
every  one  were  glad  to  meet  him,  and  as  if  it  were  every  one's 
duty  to  answer  his  questions  and  supply  his  wants.  French- 
men, Germans,  and  English  live  side  by  side  in  the  same 
house,  walk  in  the  same  paths,  lounge  in  the  same  verandah, 
and  sit  round  the  same  fire  as  though  utterly  unconscious  of 
the  presence  of  each  other,  without  betraying  by  a  word,  look, 
or  gesture  that  they  observe  fellow-creatures  around  them. 
When  we  travel  now  we  all  put  "invisible  caps"  in  our  bags, 
caps  which  make,  not  us  invisible  to  others,  but  all  our  fellow- 
travellers  invisible  to  us.  At  any  rate,  all  persons  of  different 
nationality  are  not  in  focus  at  all.  We  walk,  talk,  eat,  and 
drink  as  if  they  were  mere  Banquo's  ghosts,  invisible  to  the 
company  generally.  A  British  peer  at  a  race-course  could  not 
seem  more  absolutely  unconscious  of  the  presence  of  his 
fellow-beings. 

The  Italian  used  to  be,  if  one  met  him  out  of  Italy,  the 


REGRETS  OF  A  VETERAN  TRAVELLER  225 

prince  of  travelling  companions.  He  was  usually  a  very 
superior  type  of  his  nation,  and  his  urbanity,  grace,  and 
sweetness  of  temper  were  a  constant  consolation  and  charm. 
The  better  specimens  of  Italian  gentlemen  are  still,  perhaps, 
the  most  agreeable  of  the  European  races.  But  one  may  have 
too  much  of  a  good  thing ;  and  the  hordes  of  Italian  middle 
class  who  now  pour  across  the  Alps  are  not  always  beautiful 
or  good.  The  great  Alpine  railway  tunnels  have  opened  a 
new  world  to  the  untra veiled  millions  of  Northern  Italy.  No 
people  in  Europe  have  felt  the  opening  more  certainly,  as 
none  are  so  close  to  it;  and  week  after  week  the  middle 
classes  of  Milan,  Genoa,  Turin,  Lombardy,  and  Piedmont 
pour  across  the  Alpine  passes  and  through  the  tunnels  by 
tens  of  thousands.  The  districts  bordering  on  the  great 
Alpine  railways  are  now  the  main  haunts  of  Italian  mlleg- 
giatura,  and  the  neighbourhood  of  Lucerne  and  St.  Gothard 
is  an  Italian  summer  colony.  It  could  hardly  be  expected 
that,  with  such  a  vast  increase  in  numbers,  Italy  could  main- 
tain the  high  standard  of  the  Italian  traveller  of  old.  Italian- 
issimo,  as  I  always  profess  myself,  I  confess  that  I  am  a  little 
tried  by  the  vacuous  garrulity  of  these  Milanese  burghers, 
their  taste  for  colour  in  costume,  now,  alas  !  descended  to  the 
level  of  a  Jamaica  negress,  and  the  vapid  insouciance  of  man, 
woman,  and  child.  As  on  the  deck  of  the  Lucerne  steam- 
boats, amid  scenes  perhaps  the  most  exquisite  and  sublime 
in  Europe,  I  listen  to  the  eternal  grasshopper's  chirrup  of  these 
bulbous,  plain,  black-eyed  signorine,  perpetually  sucking  cara- 
mels and  lozenges,  with  their  oleaginous  mamma,  a  bundle 
of  ill-assorted  chiffons,  their  obese  papa  with  a  big  bad  cigar 
in  his  blackened  teeth,  and  the  faineant  young  men  with 
gewgaw  jewelry,  vile  tobacco,  and  almost  every  accessory  of 
a  tourist,  except  books,  information,  enthusiasm,  and  inter- 
est, I  confess  I  wonder  if  the  "Administration  of  Italian  Rail- 
Q 


226  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

ways"  have  really  benefited  their  countrymen  by  organising 
"no  less  than  fifty-one  circular  tours."  But  these  Milanese 
and  Turinese  happy  families,  if  they  carry  little  out  of  the 
Alps  either  in  mind  or  body,  do  no  more  harm  than  the 
grasshoppers ;  and  one  can  only  trust  that  here  and  there  in 
their  crowds  there  yet  lingers  the  charming  Italian  fellow- 
traveller  of  our  youth,  with  far  finer  manner  than  the  French- 
man, far  more  grace  than  the  German,  and  far  more  repose 
than  the  Englishman,  who  was  not  without  enthusiasm, 
knowledge,  and  energy,  all  infused  with  a  certain  sympa- 
thetic sweetness  which  was  his  own  peculiar  note. 

And  our  own  dear  countrymen,  have  they,  in  these  thirty 
or  forty  years,  gained  as  much  intellectually  and  morally  as 
they  certainly  have  in  material  opportunity  ?  Let  us  trust  so. 
Foreign,  and  especially  Alpine,  touring  has  become  a  highly 
organised  institution,  brought  to  perfection  by  everything  that 
administrative  genius,  capital,  and  science  can  give.  Steam, 
electricity,  human  energy  and  ambition  can  hardly  add 
another  touch  to  the  mechanism  of  travel.  The  develop- 
ment of  the  circular  tour  system,  of  the  pension  system,  of 
the  coupon  system,  the  patience  and  genius  which  now  trans- 
port all  the  joys  of  Scarborough,  Trouville,  or  Homburg  up 
to  the  snow  level,  have  indeed  transformed  the  Continent  to 
the  tourist.  Morally,  we  Britons  plant  the  British  flag  on 
every  peak  and  pass;  and  wherever  the  Union  Jack  floats 
there  we  place  the  cardinal  British  institutions  —  tea,  tubs, 
sanitary  appliances,  lawn  tennis,  and  churches ;  all  of  them 
excellent  things  in  season.  But  the  missionary  zeal  of  our 
people  is  not  always  according  to  knowledge  and  discretion. 
We  are  now  planting  also  in  these  foreign  pensions  that  other 
English  institution,  of  which  we  are  so  justly  proud  —  our 
beautiful  family  life.  Thousands  of  charming  British  chil- 
dren now  make  gay  the  foreign  pension  with  their  innocent 


REGRETS  OF  A  VETERAN  TRAVELLER  227 

prattle  and  engaging  frolics.  But  a  word  in  season  to  the 
judicious  parent.  The  pension,  comfortable  as  it  is,  is  not 
absolutely  home ;  the  foreign  visitors  who  surround  us  there, 
though  by  a  fiction  of  international  comity  invisible  to  each 
other,  really  have  human  eyes  and  ears.  The  innocence  of 
youth  is  but  too  apt  to  mistake  conventional  fictions  for  facts ; 
and  encouraged  by  the  social  attitude  of  their  elders,  the 
children  and  youth  of  both  sexes  are  ready  to  treat  the  pen- 
sion as  their  own  particular  home,  and  themselves  as  its 
sole  inmates.  They  romp,  shout,  giggle,  sing,  and  indulge  in 
every  sweet  domestic  gambol  with  as  much  spirit  as  if  they 
were  really  in  the  dear  old  rectory  or  grange  in  Loamshire  — 
nay,  they  add  an  extra  touch  of  abandon  and  dash  to  their 
romps.  A  family  party  who  have  been  a  week  or  two  in  a 
pension  are  apt  to  take  themselves  to  be  the  little  masters  and 
mistresses  of  the  whole  establishment,  and  any  recent  arrivals 
as  mere  intruders.  They  "go  on,"  as  children  say,  not 
wholly  unconscious  perhaps  of  our  presence,  but  sweetly 
indifferent  to  our  observant  eyes.  In  these  Alpine  chalets 
the  floors  are  mere  decks  and  the  chambers  simple  cabins. 
Every  giggle,  scream,  or  laugh  is  audible  from  stem  to  stern, 
and  the  whole  house  rings  with  these  young  voices  and  the 
merry  thumps  of  those  young  limbs.  A  particularly  engaging 
family  of  girls  lodged  exactly  over  my  head  would  play  leap- 
frog with  their  brothers  every  morning  from  5  to  7  A.M.  and 
every  evening  from  9  to  1 1  P.M.  with  many  a  shriek  of  delight 
and  much  rough-and-tumble  tussling,  like  a  scrimmage  "at 
the  wall."  Perhaps  it  a  little  shortened  our  night's  rest; 
some  of  us  had  just  arrived  straight  from  London;  others 
were  busy  with  letters ;  and  some  were  to  start  at  daybreak. 
But  what  mattered  it  so  long  as  the  sweet  things  had  a  good 
romp  and  a  loud  laugh?  And  then  how  engaging  it  is  to 
hear  them  chuckling  and  screaming  till  the  salon  de  lecture 


228  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

rings  with  their  innocent  mirth,  or  to  watch  them  purloin  the 
English  newspapers  for  papa  and  mamma,  and  to  listen  to 
them  by  the  hour  strumming  their  exercises  in  B  flat  or  varia- 
tions on  the  "Carnival  de  Venise."  And  such  is  the  artless 
confidence  of  childhood,  such  its  naive  unconsciousness,  that 
these  dear  babes  will  rattle  off  their  simple  waltzes  and  marches 
in  presence  of  a  score  of  Germans,  of  whom  each  third  man 
and  woman  is  a  trained  musician.  I  confess  that,  when  after 
some  hours  of  this  schoolroom  banging  of  the  keys  the  piano 
is  at  last  free,  and  I  have  heard  a  German  virtuoso  sit  down, 
and  with  a  few  subtle  touches  of  a  master-hand,  even  on  that 
ill-used  pension  instrument,  remind  us  of  what  music  really 
is,  I  feel  some  patriotic  shame  at  this  practice  of  carrying  the 
whole  schoolroom  abroad. 

And  how  refreshing  it  is  to  see  our  British  lads  stalking 
about  with  their  ice-axes  like  conquerors  in  a  subject  race, 
for  all  the  world  looking  like  young  Goths  at  Rome  in  one 
of  the  colossal  historical  tableaux  in  the  Paris  Salon,  or  the 
Varangians  at  Byzantium  in  Count  Robert  of  Paris.  What 
lofty  scorn  gleams  from  their  young  calves  for  man,  woman, 
and  child  not  British  by  birth,  and  for  every  man  who  has 
never  carried  an  ice-axe.  The  bowler  in  the  great  school 
match  is  not  a  more  superb  sight  at  Lord's  nor  the  stroke  of 
a  winning  eight  at  Henley.  In  this  matter  of  ice-axes  per- 
haps the  glorious  practice  of  glacier  walking  is  being  a  little 
discredited.  An  English  lad  nowadays  can  no  more  venture 
to  be  seen  in  Switzerland  without  an  axe  than  he  could  show 
at  Henley  without  flannels,  or  at  Cowes  without  his  deck 
shoes  and  yachting  cap.  But  of  the  thousands  of  striplings 
who  now  carry  about  these  cumbrous  and  murderous  look- 
ing weapons  not  all  know  how  to  use  them  properly,  and  per- 
haps not  one  in  three  has  ever  seriously  tried  them.  Those 
who  have  tried  it  know  well  that  it  takes  no  little  practice 


REGRETS  OF  A  VETERAN  TRAVELLER 


229 


before  the  axe  is  anything  but  a  danger  and  a  nuisance  to  the 
young  climber.  There  is,  we  may  be  sure,  a  certain  amount 
of  "swagger"  about  this  ice-axe  shop.  Mere  lads  call  them- 
selves ''mountaineers"  and  chatter  about  "aretes"  and 
"couloirs"  as  if  they  were  each  Melchior  Anderegg  or  Chris- 
tian Aimer.  At  evening  and  in  bad  weather  they  stalk  and 
lounge  about  the  hotel  terrace,  moody,  terrible,  and  statuesque 
as  "Red  Shirt"  and  "Yellow  Tail"  at  the  Wild  West  camp. 
They  speak  to  none  but  to  other  young  braves,  with  whom 
they  perpetually  mutter  dark  things  about  bad  places, 
bergschrunds,  and  cutting  the  record  by  seventeen  minutes. 
To  call  raw  lads  out  for  a  month's  walk  "mountaineers"  is  a 
misuse  of  terms.  The  instinctive  foothold  on  rock  or  ice 
acquired  by  real  mountaineers  is  the  education  of  a  lifetime 
begun  in  childhood.  Not  one  Englishman  in  fifty  ever  attains 
to  it,  even  after  long  training;  but  not  one  in  a  hundred 
comes  near  to  it  without  a  good  season  or  two.  Real  skill  on 
a  glacier  or  a  peak,  such  as  every  decent  guide  possesses,  is 
only  acquired  now  and  then  by  an  Englishman  after  long 
years  of  labour  and  practice.  A  good  many  English  climbers 
come  in  time  to  be  nearly  as  steady  as  a  third-rate  "porter." 
But  the  mere  beginner,  who  sees  a  bad  arete  for  the  first  time, 
is  about  as  helpful  as  a  "sleeping-bag."  Nay,  he  is  no  more 
a  "mountaineer"  than  his  own  boots  are.  Good  guides  and 
stout  porters  take  him  up  peaks  and  passes  fairly  well,  and 
usually  bring  him  safely  down.  An  average  healthy  English 
lad,  with  his  four  limbs  well  exercised,  a  sound  constitution, 
a  perfectly  steady  head,  and  the  nerve  and  handiness  which 
most  English  lads  have  got,  can  usually  be  trained  in  a  season 
or  two  to  go  safely  over  most  places  with  a  good  guide  to  lead 
and  another  good  guide  in  rear.  It  is  a  glorious  and  health- 
ful exercise,  by  all  means  to  be  encouraged.  But  to  call 
them  "mountaineers"  is  an  abuse  of  terms.  The  common 


230  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

cowherd  boy  on  the  pastures  is  an  expert  in  comparison  to 
them,  and  they  would  break  down  in  a  few  hours  if  they 
tried  to  do  the  work  of  their  own  porters.  The  mountaineer's 
instinct  on  rock  and  ice  is  an  art  quite  as  subtle  and  complex 
as  the  art  of  the  seaman  or  the  horseman.  From  the  nature 
of  the  case  an  ordinary  English  lad  cannot  have  made,  in  his 
season  or  two,  more  than  a  score  or  so  of  difficult  ice  expedi- 
tions. To  call  oneself  a  mountaineer  on  the  strength  of 
twenty  days'  practice  is  as  ludicrous  as  it  would  be  to  call 
oneself  a  seaman  after  a  month's  yachting  in  the  Channel,  or 
to  call  oneself  a  horseman  after  twenty  or  thirty  mounts 
in  one's  whole  life.  How  would  our  tennis-players  and 
cricketers  smile  at  a  young  Frenchman  who  wished  to  enter 
himself  in  a  county  match  because  "he  had  practised  for  six 
weeks  last  season  at  Wimbledon  or  Lord's ! "  Punch  once 
gave  us  a  portrait  of  the  foreign  sportsman  who  had  never 
caught  a  fox,  "but  would  try,  mon  ami,  would  try."  I  think 
of  it  as  I  see  some  of  our  young  heroes  crossing  the  Channel 
with  unsullied  axe  to  face  a  glacier  peak  for  the  first  time  in 
their  lives  and  to  try  if  they  also  are  not  mountaineers. 

A  very  melancholy  abuse  of  a  splendid  pastime  is  the  com- 
mon practice  of  forcing  the  pace.  Climbing  mountains  is 
perhaps  of  all  forms  of  exercise  the  one  most  closely  associated 
with  the  sublime  impressions  of  nature,  and  with  majestic 
and  inspiring  ideas.  To  degrade  it  to  mere  muscular  exer- 
cise, like  boating  on  the  Cam,  or  running  on  the  measured 
track,  is  the  part  of  a  simpleton.  Morally,  poetically,  and 
intellectually  a  great  Alpine  expedition  stands  far  above  all 
other  forms  of  athletic  enterprise.  To  think  about  "cutting 
the  record"  is  to  show  that  one  has  no  soul  for  any  but  its 
lowest  and  most  animal  accompaniments.  If  we  go  on  thus 
we  shall  have  gate-money  and  handicaps  introduced  into  this 
most  noble  of  pastimes.  The  young  athlete  who  is  sweating 


REGRETS   OF  A  VETERAN  TRAVELLER  231 

upon  a  snow  slope  in  hopes  of  beating  "Tomkins's  time"  has 
not  a  glance  for  one  of  the  noblest  visions  this  earth  contains. 
On  the  summit  of  his  peak  he  is  gasping  for  breath,  or  else 
he  is  fretting  to  be  back  at  the  hut  ten  minutes  before  Brown. 
It  is  a  wretched  affair  to  waste  poetry,  beauty,  and  nature 
in  a  common  race  which  is  far  more  in  place  at  Lillie  Bridge 
racing-ground.  In  the  glorious  days  of  old,  when  we  car- 
ried our  axes  and  did  our  passes  and  peaks,  we  took  our  own 
tune,  stayed  as  long  as  we  could  see  anything,  and  drained 
to  the  last  drop  the  cup  of  inspiration  which  the  Witch  of  the 
Alps  holds  forth  to  him  who  seeks  her  humbly  on  her  top- 
most throne.  But  it  is  only  now,  as  I  potter  about  slowly 
with  a  walking-stick,  and  no  expeditions  or  passes  more,  to 
the  infinite  contempt  of  my  young  ice-axe  friends  —  it  is  only 
now,  in  the  late  autumn  of  my  travelling  life,  that  I  come  to 
see  all  the  infinite  glories  of  these  Alpine  crests,  the  untrodden 
regions  of  poetry  that  yet  lie  round  them  to  be  known,  the 
mystery  of  these  heaven-descending  veils  of  cloud  and  mist, 
the  majesty  of  these  towering  masses,  the  unfolding  drama 
which  is  played  round  us  night  and  day  of  man  and  nature, 
for  ever  in  contrast,  for  ever  at  war,  for  ever  in  alliance. 

Another  wonderful  development  of  the  pension  system  is 
the  vast  multiplication  of  English  churches.  Forty  years 
ago  there  were  English  churches  in  some  principal  towns, 
and  an  impromptu  service  was  often  arranged  for  a  clergy- 
man who  chanced  to  be  present  on  a  Sunday  morning.  Now 
the  chapel  or  church  is  almost  as  much  a  requisite  of  an  hotel 
as  a  table  d'hote.  Nay,  every  mountain  chalet  inn  pretends 
to  its  "chapel"  and  its  "chaplain."  It  is  very  natural  that 
English  tourists  should  desire  a  regular  service  on  Sunday; 
and  no  one  could  blame  Church  people  for  seeking  to  secure 
it.  But,  like  all  other  things,  this  laudable  desire  has  its 
own  dangers  of  being  spoiled  by  over-organisation.  The 


232  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

congregations  do  not  always  remember  the  very  peculiar  con- 
ditions under  which  they  exist.  They  are  not  a  real  "con- 
gregation" at  all  —  they  have  no  corporate  existence,  no 
local  duties  or  interests,  no  social  cohesion,  no  poor,  no 
charities,  no  parish.  They  are  mere  chance  visitors,  un- 
known to  each  other,  and  with  no  common  sentiment  or 
interest.  The  "chaplain"  is  not  a  real  priest  of  a  real 
parish.  He  is  merely  a  tourist  out  for  a  holiday,  who  gets 
his  board  and  lodging  for  his  Sunday  services.  He  knows 
nothing  of  his  flock,  has  no  parochial  duties,  no  poor  to  help, 
and  no  local  interests.  Any  attempt  to  plant  a  sort  of  quasi- 
congregational  system,  any  tendency  of  the  "chaplain"  to 
regard  the  hotel  and  its  inmates  as  the  parish  of  which  he  is 
the  spiritual  pastor,  any  effort  on  the  part  of  the  habitues  and 
pensionnaires  to  make  themselves  a  society  for  the  guarantee 
of  moral  and  religious  order  in  the  pension,  would  rest  upon 
a  thoroughly  false  basis  and  lead  to  nothing  but  disappoint- 
ment. It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  bishops  who  license  these 
chapels  make  stringent  inquiries  as  to  the  feeling  of  the  people 
among  whom  they  are  placed.  To  the  natives  and  to  the 
civil  and  spiritual  authorities  of  the  country  these  chapels 
are  too  often  centres  of  schism  and  heresy,  and  not  seldom  are 
symbols  of  bitterness  and  offence.  The  irritation  of  the  local 
churches  and  congregations  is  often  stifled  by  the  eagerness 
of  the  landlord  to  secure  British  custom.  But  we  must  hope 
that  the  bishops  in  licensing  these  primd  facie  schismatical 
chapels  will  carefully  remove  every  cause  of  offence,  and  will 
satisfy  themselves  that  they  do  nothing  to  add  a  new  anti- 
Christian  feud.  At  all  times  congregation  and  chaplain  should 
remember  that  they  exist  on  sufferance,  and  that  their  raison 
d'etre  is  peculiar.  They  ought  certainly  to  be  centres  of 
good  works  and  charity  to  the  poor  and  to  the  parish  in  which 
they  stand,  and  in  all  things  seek  the  good  will  of  the  Churches 


REGRETS  OF  A  VETERAN  TRAVELLER       233 

against  which  their  mere  existence  is  a  protest.  It  would 
carry  one  very  far  if  one  tried  to  explain  how  it  comes  that  the 
Church  of  England  alone  of  all  religious  bodies  in  Europe 
fills  almost  every  village  on  the  Continent  and  crowns  every 
Alp  with  its  own  rite  and  place  of  worship.  Tourists  of  all 
other  nations  can  exist  without  their  national  service.  Catho- 
lics in  a  Protestant  canton,  Americans  in  Europe,  Lutherans, 
Presbyterians,  and  Orthodox  Greeks  worship  God  in  their 
own  way  without  special  chapels.  But  where  there  is  an 
English  pension  there  beside  it  is  an  English  church. 
Is  it  that  we  English  are  the  only  religious  people  in 
Europe  ? 

In  things  spiritual  and  things  temporal  alike  our  modern 
mania  abroad  is  to  carry  with  us  our  own  life,  instead  of 
accepting  that  which  we  find  on  the  spot.  The  generation 
which  planted  London-on-the-Sea  is  succeeded  by  the  gen- 
eration which  has  planted  Paris-on-the-Alps,  Paris-on-the- 
Riviera,  and  Paris-on-the-Bay-of-Naples.  Long  lines  of 
mules  file  up  the  Alps,  carrying  Saratoga  trunks  and  cases 
of  Veuve- Clicquot  to  the  level  of  the  eternal  snows.  In  every 
little  village  inn  we  expect  to  be  supplied  with  five  courses 
at  the  table  d'hote  —  tinned  salmon,  bottled  peas,  preserved 
soups,  and  all  the  other  horrors  of  the  dear-and-nasty  sham 
Paris  menu.  It  was  pleasant  of  old,  when  one  reached  a 
mountain  chalet  after  a  day's  walk,  to  see  how  the  good- 
humoured  host  welcomed  one  to  his  quaint  salon,  with  pic- 
tures of  Napoleon,  Tell,  and  Winkelried,  and  his  wife  pre- 
pared a  potage  bonne  femme,  a  kalbsbraten  with  potatoes,  a 
mehl-speise,  or  the  like,  and  a  bottle  of  vin  du  pays.  One 
touched  at  those  moments  on  the  native  life  of  the  place, 
one  tasted  the  local  fare,  and  saw  the  homes  of  the  people. 
It  is  all  over  now.  At  7000  feet  above  the  sea,  or  in  some 
village  of  500  thrifty  peasants,  we  sit  down  in  Grand  Hotels 


234 


MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 


to  a  dinner  which  is  a  poor  imitation  of  the  Palais  Royal 
cuisine.  What  is  the  good  of  these  mirrors,  gilt  cornices, 
and  plated  centre-pieces,  filled  with  paste-board  flowers,  on 
the  top  of  a  mountain,  or  in  a  valley  swept  twice  a  year  by 
avalanches?  What  mortal  can  care  for  cotelettes  d'agneau  a 
la  jardiniere  when  he  knows  that  lamb,  sauce,  vegetables, 
cook,  and  dish  are  all  sent  in  by  contract  from  a  foreign 
country  hundreds  of  miles  off?  After  a  month  of  foreign 
hotels  we  sicken  of  tinned  vegetables,  bottled  sauces,  packed 
meat,  spurious  wines,  canned  fruits,  gaudy  menus,  and  the 
whole  apparatus  of  pretending  to  mimic  the  Cafe  Riche  on 
the  tops  of  the  Alps  or  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean.  We 
were  far  better  off  when  we  had  to  put  up  every  now  and 
then  with  the  overdose  of  oil  of  the  Italian  albergo  or  the 
rough-and-ready  roast  veal  of  the  Swiss  gasthaus.  Nowa- 
days it  is  the  horrid  sameness  of  one  bad  standard  which 
haunts  us  from  Calais  to  Palermo.  Ccelum  non  vitam 
mutant  qui  trans  mare  currunt.  We  go  abroad,  but  we 
travel  no  longer.  We  see  nothing  really  of  the  people  among 
whom  we  sojourn.  We  never  touch  their  lives.  They  are 
not  even  our  caterers  or  our  servants.  We  lodge  in  sham 
Grand  Hotels,  we  take  our  meals  of  sham  Paris  dishes,  our 
food  is  a  foreign  import,  we  are  served  by  sham  French 
waiters,  and  supplied  by  sham  French  cooks.  Everything 
we  touch,  or  see,  or  eat  is  a  horrid  kind  of  patent  "notion" 
for  making  a  thing  look  what  it  is  not.  And  all  this  fraud, 
pretence,  and  artificiality  in  the  midst  of  scenes  the  most 
lovely  and  sublime  which  earth  contains,  among  a  people 
who  can  barely  keep  off  hunger,  cold,  and  want  by  incessant 
labour  and  unsparing  self-denial.  In  a  month  or  two  we 
shall  have  returned  home  to  the  weary  round  of  our  cotelettes 
a  la  financiere,  and  these  frugal  peasants  will  be  battling  for 
life  with  the  elements  and  their  ungenial  soil,  huddled  in 


REGRETS  OF  A  VETERAN  TRAVELLER      235 

dark  and  fetid  huts,  watching  the  rare  visits  of  the  sun  above 
their  gorge,  fearing  the  avalanche  and  the  storm,  wending 
through  the  wreaths  of  snow  to  the  village  mass,  wearing 
out  their  hard,  dull,  dark  lives,  which  we  travellers  no  longer 
care  to  touch  even  with  the  tips  of  our  ringers. 


THE   RIVIERA  DI   LEVANTE 

1898 

I  OFTEN  wonder  how  people  of  taste  and  sense  can  continue 
to  crowd  into  the  Frenchified,  vulgarised,  and  stuffy  western 
end  of  the  Riviera,  when  they  can  find  health,  beauty,  and 
quiet  in  the  Riviera  east  of  Genoa,  from  which  I  write  a  few 
stray  notes.  It  is  true  that,  on  this  side,  there  are  no  spots  so 
warm  and  sheltered  as  are  many  to  be  found  between  Nice 
and  San  Remo.  Nor  are  there  the  promenades,  hotels,  gar- 
dens, and  villas  of  Cannes,  Monte  Carlo,  and  Mentone. 
Invalids  and  votaries  of  society  and  fashion  keep  strictly  to 
the  brilliant  modern  Baiae,  which  within  the  last  forty  years 
has  spread  itself  out  from  the  Gulf  of  La  Napoule  to  the 
Capo  Verde  that  screens  San  Remo.  Those  who  have  deli- 
cate lungs,  or  who  cannot  live  without  the  luxuries  of  Paris 
and  the  gaieties  of  New  York,  naturally  keep  westward  of 
the  Green  Headland.  But  some  people  are  rather  bored  by 
Metropole  Caravanserais  of  the  latest  pattern,  and  find  no 
charm  in  cosmopolitan  gamblers  and  bedizened  mondaines 
from  all  parts  of  the  world,  rolling  along  dusty  boulevards 
in  showy  barouches.  We  can  see  all  this  in  the  season  in  the 
Champs  Elysees,  and  it  brings  us  no  abiding  joy.  Those 
who  have  sound  lungs,  good  legs,  and  an  eye  for  history  and 
art  should  seek  a  little  rest  and  enjoyment  in  the  true  Italian 
Riviera,  east  of  Genoa,  which  is  still  what  Italy  was  in  the 
days  of  our  grandfathers  —  picturesque,  historic,  old-world, 
sunny,  and  natural. 

236 


THE  RIVIERA  DI  LEVANTE  237 

Forty  or  fifty  years  ago,  before  the  great  transformation 
took  place  on  the  French  Riviera,  when  Nizza,  Villafranca, 
and  Mentone  were  antique  Italian  towns,  and  when  it  was 
one  of  the  eccentricities  of  Lord  Brougham  to  like  Cannes,  all 
that  seaboard  was  a  delightful  land.  Only  a  hundred  years 
ago  Arthur  Young  had  trouble  to  get  an  old  woman  and  a 
donkey  to  carry  his  portmanteau  from  Cannes  to  Antibes. 
I  can  myself  remember  Cannes  in  1853,  a  small  fishing  village 
with  a  quiet  beach,  and  Mentone,  a  walled  town  with  mediae- 
val gates  and  a  castle,  a  few  humble  villas,  and  the  old  Posta 
to  give  supper  to  any  passing  traveller.  It  was  one  of  the 
loveliest  bits  of  Italy,  and  the  road  from  Nizza  to  Genoa  was 
one  long  procession  for  four  days  of  glorious  scenery,  his- 
toric remnants,  Italian  colour,  and  picturesque  ports.  From 
the  Estrelles  to  San  Remo  this  has  all  been  ruined  by  the  horde 
of  northern  barbarians  who  have  made  it  a  sort  of  Trouville, 
Brighton,  or  Biarritz,  with  American  hotels  and  Parisian 
boulevards  on  every  headland  and  bay.  First  came  the  half- 
underground  railway,  a  long  tunnel  with  lucid  intervals, 
which  destroyed  the  road,  by  blocking  up  its  finest  views 
and  making  it  practically  useless.  Then  miles  of  unsightly 
caravanserais,  high  walls,  pompous  villas,  and  Parisian 
grandes  rues  crushed  out  every  trace  of  Italy,  of  history,  and 
pictorial  charm.  No  vulgarity  of  modern  luxury  can  wholly 
destroy  the  loveliness  of  the  country  itself;  and  there  are 
still  to  be  found  some  bits  round  Mentone,  Bordighera,  and 
San  Remo  where  the  old  Italian  charm  survives.  But  these 
have  to  be  sought  out  and  detached  from  the  sea  of  pompous 
commonplace,  as  it  is  understood  by  the  smart  managers  of 
French  and  American  hotels. 

Those  who  care  to  know  what  the  Riviera  was  once  must 
come  east  of  Genoa ;  where,  though  something  of  the  same 
process  is  beginning,  the  old  Italian  character  is  still  to  be 


238  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

seen.  I  quite  admit  that  forty  years  ago  the  road  from  Nice 
to  Bordighera  was  the  most  beautiful  and  romantic  in  Italy, 
perhaps  in  Europe.  Since  that  coast  has  been  Frenchified 
and  Americanised,  it  is  so  no  more.  The  seaboard  from 
Nervi  to  Sestri  di  Levante  (or,  to  put  narrower  limits,  from 
Camogli  to  Chiavari)  has  now  taken  the  first  rank.  I  have 
known  Italy  now  for  five-and-forty  years,  and  have  seen  every 
part  of  it  from  Bellinzona  to  Syracuse.  But  I  know  no  dis- 
trict which  in  natural  loveliness,  variety,  and  Italian  local 
colouring  surpasses  the  country  which  lies  round  the  promon- 
tory of  Porto  Fino — say  that  between  Camogli  and  Zoagli. 
Here  are  no  "Metropoles"  and  "Continentals,"  with  "elec- 
tric lights,  lifts,  and  600  beds,"  no  circular  boulevards,  clubs, 
concerts,  or  races.  But,  in  a  rocky  seaboard  clothed  with 
profuse  vegetation  and  rising  up  into  fine  mountains,  one 
finds  a  succession  of  quaint  old-world  Italian  ports  and 
townships,  strewn  with  remnants  of  antiquity,  Roman,  Sara- 
cenic, Mediaeval  and  Renascence,  every  hamlet  glowing  with 
colour  and  luxuriant  vegetation,  winding  streets  with  arcades, 
loggias,  and  sanctuaries  at  every  turn,  Genoese  forts  and 
Lombard  campanili,  and  all  the  picturesque  confusion  and 
luscious  glow  of  an  ancient  Italian  town  that  has  hardly 
changed  for  a  century  or  two. 

The  contrast  between  the  climate  of  Mentone  or  San  Remo 
and  that  of  the  Eastern  Riviera  is  something  extraordinary. 
Pulmonary  cases  are,  of  course,  more  safe  in  the  west.  Yet 
for  an  active  man  in  good  health  almost  every  "health  resort" 
between  Saint  Raphael  and  Alassio  has  a  somewhat  ener- 
vating effect.  But  the  hillsides  between  Genoa  and  Spezia, 
though  much  more  open  to  cold  winds,  have  a  thoroughly 
bracing  air.  I  have  walked  over  the  Highlands  and  the  Alps, 
and  I  know  almost  every  part  of  the  coast  from  the  Estrellcs 
to  Spezia;  but  no  air  that  I  have  ever  tried  surpasses  in  its 


THE  RIVIERA  DI  LEVANTE  239 

dry  briskness  the  winter  climate  of  the  rocky  promontories 
that  abut  on  the  great  Porto  Fino  headland.  The  climate 
in  good  seasons  has  the  double  quality  of  singular  dryness 
with  perfect  lucidity  and  buoyancy.  It  has  that  elastic 
effervescent  tone  which  is  so  common  on  the  Grampians  and 
the  Alps,  combined  with  entire  absence  of  moisture  and  a 
far  more  blazing  and  continuous  sun.  Those  who  know  the 
top  of  a  snow  mountain  in  a  hot  summer  noon  have  experi- 
enced the  same  union  of  radiant  heat  with  cool  draughts  of 
pellucid  air.  And  for  an  active  man  in  sound  health  this 
combination  of  sunlight  and  ozone  is  not  only  the  most  health- 
giving  of  all  climates,  but  one  of  the  balmiest  sensations  that 
Nature  offers  to  the  human  frame. 

From  Porto  Maurizio  round  to  Spezia  —  a  distance  of 
nearly  130  miles  —  the  Italian  Riviera  exists  still,  not  seri- 
ously modernised  by  the  fin  de  siecle,  but  as  it  was  seen  by 
"  Doctor  Antonio,"  by  Ruskin,  Byron,  and  Shelley,  and  our 
forefathers  in  the  last  century.  It  has  the  Italian  colour,  the 
free-and-easy,  disorderly,  picturesque  grouping  of  outline, 
still  innocent  of  modern  "improvements"  and  the  geometric 
architecture  of  the  grande  rue.  The  irregular  narrow  streets, 
with  no  two  houses  of  the  same  shape,  height,  or  colour; 
the  portici,  or  arcades,  with  their  mediaeval  columns  and  dark 
cellarage ;  the  frescoes  on  the  walls,  the  shrines  and  pictures 
of  saints  at  every  corner,  lit  with  lamps  and  decorated  with 
flowers;  the  chapels,  belfries,  piazze,  palazzi,  and  loggie; 
the  balconies  and  terraces,  adorned  with  aloes,  myrtle,  roses, 
oranges,  and  cactus ;  the  brown  fisherfolk  in  red  berette,  the 
bare-legged  venders  of  maccaroni  and  fruit  —  all  that  makes 
Italy  so  dear  to  the  painter  and  the  man  of  taste  —  may  still 
be  found  at  its  best  in  this  Eastern  Riviera.  The  cosmo- 
politan luxury  which  worships  at  Monte  Carlo  has  practically 
improved  away  all  this  in  the  Western  Riviera  between  Cannes 
and  San  Remo. 


240  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

The  broad  and  lofty  headland  of  Porto  Fino  is  far  the  roost 
important  promontory  between  Nice  and  Spezia;  it  stands 
many  miles  due  south  into  the  sea,  and,  with  the  headland 
beyond  Sestri,  about  ten  or  twelve  miles  to  the  east,  it  forms 
a  bay  which  has  much  the  look  of  a  lake.  The  scenery  both 
east  and  west  of  Porto  Fino  has  thus  very  much  the  sky  out- 
line of  the  fiords  of  Norway,  or  the  western  coast  of  Scotland, 
not  that  of  the  open  sea,  as  seen  from  Monaco  or  Cap  Martin. 
And,  as  the  larger  bays  are  broken  with  a  series  of  innumer- 
able coves,  the  variety  of  view  is  endless.  Nor  does  any  heavy 
sea,  even  in  tempestuous  weather,  break  into  these  sheltered 
nooks.  There  are  few  weeks,  even  in  winter,  when  it  is  not 
perfectly  easy  to  boat  about  Porto  Fino,  but  when  boating 
would  be  quite  impracticable  between  Monaco  and  San 
Remo.  The  famous  Dolphin  Harbour,  which  gives  its 
ancient  name  to  the  lofty  promontory,  stih1  confers  a  special 
character  on  the  Riviera  around  it,  by  varying  the  scenery, 
forming  a  vast  natural  breakwater,  and  multiplying  the  points 
of  access  both  by  land  and  water. 

In  the  extreme  cove  at  the  end  of  the  eastern  bay  lies 
Rapallo,  once  a  walled  republic  with  an  ancient  history, 
which  is  pronounced  by  Mr.  Augustus  Hare  now  to  be  "in- 
contestably  by  far  the  most  beautiful  place  on  either  Riviera. 
It  is  thoroughly  Italian  in  the  character  of  its  campaniles, 
cypresses,  and  little  rocky  bays.  Its  natives  are  kind,  civil, 
and  respectable.  Its  walks  are  inexhaustible."  Every  word 
of  this  description  is  strictly  accurate.  In  the  town,  and  in 
the  walks  and  drives  within  an  hour  or  two  around  it,  are 
certainly  to  be  found  the  most  interesting  and  lovely  views 
on  the  entire  Riviera,  since  the  ruin  of  the  French  side  after 
annexation.  The  old  road  from  Nice  to  Mentone  doubtless 
once  surpassed  it,  with  the  "Trophy"  of  Augustus,  Eza,  and 
mediaeval  Monaco ;  but  the  charm  of  that  wonderful  district 


THE   RIVIERA  DI  LEVANTE  241 

has  been  boulevarded  and  casinoed  out  of  all  memory ;  and 
the  genius  loci  has  fled  before  the  horde  of  unclean  punters 
and  the  painted  fribbles  who  represent  the  upper  crust  of 

Europe. 

Jam  pridem  in  Tiberim  Syrius  defluxit  Orontes. 

East  of  Genoa,  as  we  approach  towards  Tuscany  and 
Rome,  the  historic  record  is  more  deeply  graven  on  rock, 
city,  and  tower,  and  it  has  been  far  less  obliterated  and  dis- 
figured by  the  rage  of  vulgar  luxury  and  display.  Here,  for 
more  than  2000  years,  a  long  succession  of  ages  have  left  the 
marks  of  their  civilisation,  their  religion,  and  their  art ;  and 
there  are  few  out  of  all  those  twenty  centuries  which  have 
not  left  visible  traces.  All  along  the  coast  we  come  on  con- 
tinual fragments  of  the  Roman  Via  Aurelia,  which  was  the 
highway  from  Rome  to  the  Rhone.  The  lines  of  this  long 
and  important  road,  with  here  and  there  a  bit  of  bridge,  of 
embankment,  of  pavement,  are  continually  cropping  up,  often 
for  only  a  few  yards,  sometimes  for  half  a  mile  or  more. 

The  great  road  was  kept  up  all  through  the  Middle  Ages, 
and  it  may  be  said  never  to  have  been  abandoned  even  for 
a  century  since  the  first  construction.  The  configuration  of 
the  seaboard,  where  mountains  leave  hardly  a  ledge  of  ground 
between  them  and  the  sea,  made  it  practically  impossible  to 
change  its  course,  or  to  make  a  new  road,  as  was  the  case 
with  so  many  of  the  Roman  roads  in  other  parts  of  Europe. 
The  necessities  of  the  day  compelled  many  repairs  and  re- 
newals. And  he  would  be  a  bold  man  who  could  assign 
precise  dates  to  these  antique  and  foot-worn  fragments  of 
black  limestone  and  marble.  But  for  essential  purposes  the 
patches  of  old  road  which  are  seen  so  often  are  the  actual 
remnants  of  the  memorable  track,  along  which  for  2000  years 
have  tramped  consuls,  cohorts,  and  armies  of  Rome,  Span- 
iards, Gauls,  and  Britons  to  the  Eternal  City,  pilgrims  from 


242  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

the  far  West  to  the  tombs  of  the  Apostles,  the  Northern  in- 
vaders of  Italy,  Lombards,  Saracens,  Byzantines,  and  Nor- 
mans, Petrarch  and  Dante,  and  the  wayfarers  from  Provence 
to  Tuscany  all  through  the  Middle  Ages,  and  so  on  through- 
out the  French  and  Italian  wars  down  to  the  age  of  Napoleon. 
The  noble  road  from  Nice  to  Spezia,  along  which  we  used  to 
travel  in  the  present  century,  until  the  amphibious  railroad 
in  turn  superseded  it,  made  havoc  of  the  old  Aurelian  road 
of  Roman  and  mediaeval  times,  has  crushed  out  much  of  it, 
and  has  thrust  more  of  it  into  olive  grounds  and  vineyards 
out  of  sight.  But  here  and  there  bits  of  it  crop  up  still.  Oh ! 
that  those  black  stones  could  speak,  and  tell  us  what  they 
have  seen. 

All  round  the  headland  of  Porto  Fino  the  rocks  are  studded 
with  remains  of  Genoese  towers,  which  have  defied  Saracens, 
Pisans,  and  Normans,  and  almost  every  bay  in  the  last  2000 
years  must  have  been  the  scene  of  a  sea-fight,  a  raid  of  pirates, 
or  a  border  tussle.  The  most  picturesque  of  these  forts  is 
that  which  defends  Rapallo  on  the  east,  which  still  has  its 
dungeons  and  its  prisoners  and  guards.  The  ancient  re- 
public of  Rapallo  has  left  some  remnants  of  its  mediaeval 
structure  even  in  the  busy,  cheerful,  and  orderly  little  port 
into  which  it  has  shrunk.  Fragments  of  the  city  gate,  trans- 
formed into  a  rococo  sanctuary,  the  base  of  the  old  Palazzo 
Publico,  monasteries  and  nunneries,  an  old  palace  or  two, 
the  arcades  with  the  earliest  pointed  arch,  and  four  campanili 
of  Renascence  style,  which,  however  horrific  to  the  whole 
Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture,  make  up  a  group  that  only 
Turner  could  paint.  Over  the  portal  of  the  principal  church 
is  a  long  inscription  of  the  sixteenth  century,  recording  the 
finding  of  an  older  inscription,  which  records  the  conversion 
of  the  people  in  the  first  century,  and  the  founding  of  the 
church  on  the  site  of  a  temple  of  Pallas.  The  inscription,  like 


THE  RIVIERA  DI  LEVANTE  243 

most  of  such  things,  can  as  little  be  held  worthy  of  a  place  in 
a  genuine  Corpus  Inscriptionum  as  we  can  believe  that  the 
great  Carthaginian  led  his  army  over  "  Hannibal's  Bridge," 
a  mile  off,  though  they  serve  to  suggest  to  a  simple  and 
imaginative  people  the  vast  layers  of  antiquity  upon  which 
their  lives  are  cast. 

Every  mile  or  two  on  this  historic  ground  may  be  found 
traces  of  the  growth  and  battles  of  nations,  creeds,  and  rival 
civilisations.  Hill-forts  built  by  Romans  when  they  garrisoned 
their  Chitrals  and  Ali  Musjids  to  curb  the  Afridis  of  old 
Liguria  —  rocky  fastnesses  which  sought  to  stem  the  Lom- 
bard invaders  —  mountain  strongholds  wherein  the  scared 
population  of  the  seaboard  took  refuge  on  the  sight  of  Sara- 
cen and  Turkish  pirates  —  the  arsenals  of  petty  republics 
which  fought  first  against  Genoa  and  then  as  members  of 
the  Genoese  Empire.  Again,  it  is  some  ancient  monastery 
or  hospice,  sanatorium  or  refuge,  of  an  order  of  monks, 
mendicant  or  military  —  some  secluded  convent  of  early 
Lombardic  structure  in  a  woody  glen  —  now  and  then  a 
fragment  of  quaint  Byzantine  work  —  or  the  pilgrimage 
sanctuary  on  a  mountain  spur  that  commemorates  a  gracious 
visit  of  the  Mother  of  God.  And  on  each  commanding  point 
a  rococo  Jesuit  church  in  the  debased  manner  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  or  a  palace  of  a  Genoese  noble,  built  in  the 
days  of  Rubens  and  Vandyke.  Of  all  these  remnants  of  past 
glory  and  strife  none  can  compare  in  pathos  with  the  ancient 
cloister  of  San  Fruttuoso,  where  lie  in  their  solemn  sarcophagi 
centuries  of  Dorias,  facing  the  city  they  served,  surrounded 
by  the  waters  they  were  wont  to  sweep,  and  guarded  by  tre- 
mendous precipices,  deep  in  the  recesses  of  a  wooded  glen. 

Here  around  Genoa,  itself  one  of  the  grandest  and  most 
fascinating  cities  of  Europe,  are  spread  out  in  one  of  the 
richest  and  loveliest  landscapes  in  the  world  a  series  of  his- 


244  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

toric  remnants  which  suggest  a  thousand  memories  and  a 
crowd  of  problems  yet  unsolved.  And  though  the  monu- 
mental record  of  the  Riviera  is  almost  continuous  from 
palaeolithic  times  to  Victor  Emmanuel,  there  is  no  confusion 
or  discord  in  it ;  nor  has  it  yet  been  submerged  by  mod- 
ern hotels,  villas,  and  boulevards.  The  only  inns  are  old- 
fashioned  houses  of  a  century  or  two  ago.  The  people  are 
hardy,  laborious,  courteous,  and  honest.  What  vital  reli- 
gion survives  in  Italy  may  be  seen  here  at  its  best.  Cleanli- 
ness, comfort,  and  decency  are  the  rule  and  not  the  exception. 
It  knows  not  the  penury  of  Lombard  rice  grounds,  the  horrors 
of  Sicilian  mines,  nor  the  mendicity  and  thievery  of  the 
Neapolitan  slums.  Poor  as  is  all  kind  of  classical  music  in 
Italy,  one  feels  that  the  gift  of  vocal  melody  is  still  not  dead, 
but  dormant  and  hibernating  in  the  mass  of  the  people. 
And  however  vulgar  are  the  more  pretentious  forms  of  Italian 
art,  and  garish  as  is  the  modern  taste  with  its  bourgeois  thirst 
for  colour  —  still,  one  can  see  that  of  the  Western  nations  of 
Europe,  the  soil  of  Italy  is  yet  the  true  and  natural  nidus  of 
fruitful  and  spontaneous  Art. 

POSTSCRIPT,     1906 

Alas !  alas  !  this  corner,  too,  of  old  Italy  is  going  the  way 
of  all  else  that  was  lovely,  sacred,  and  historic  in  Europe. 
American  Grand  Hotels,  Monte  Carlo  villas,  Parisian  boule- 
vards have  already  invaded  this  peaceful  retreat  of  our  old 
age ;  and  I  am  told  that  my  own  praises  of  it  have  helped  to 
swell  the  incursion  of  our  Northern  barbarians.  And  now 
that  new  disease,  the  pestilent  motoritis,  has  begun  to  make 
the  Riviera  di  Levante  as  foul,  as  noisy,  and  as  dusty  as 
is  the  Riviera  di  Ponente  at  the  height  of  its  orgies. 


ECCO  LA  TOSCANA! 

1904 

A  FASCINATING  book  has  just  appeared  which  has  stirred 
in  me  a  thousand  memories  of  pleasure,  such  as  can  be  but 
little  known  to  men  and  women  of  the  present  generation. 
The  delights  of  the  old  Italian  vettura  as  a  method  of  travel- 
ling are  an  experience  only  possessed  by  those  who  are  far 
past  middle  life.  Yet  Mr.  Maurice  Hewlett,  in  his  new 
book,  The  Road  in  Tuscany,1  though  not  a  veteran,  has  given 
us  a  set  of  vivid  pictures  of  what  real  travelling  was  before 
railroads,  trams,  Metropole  hotels,  and  Mr.  Cook's  tours  had 
modernised,  barbarised,  and  cockneyfied  Central  Italy.  In 
a  delicious  passage  in  one  of  his  sweetest  books  (Praterita, 
ch.  vi.)  John  Ruskin  describes  the  joys  of  travelling  by  road 
exactly  seventy  years  ago:  in  the  glorious  times  before  "the 
poor  modern  slaves  and  simpletons  let  themselves  be  dragged 
like  cattle,  or  felled  timber,  through  the  countries  they  imagine 
'themselves  visiting." 

Sono  anch'  io  vetturino.  At  least  I  have  descended  upon 
Italy  along  every  one  of  the  great  Alpine  roads  —  have  driven 
along  the  Riviera  from  Cannes  to  Spezia  long  before  the  rail- 
way blocked  out  the  view  f rom  the  road  —  when  Cannes  was 
a  sleepy  fishing  village,  Mentone  a  machicolated,  gated,  and 

1  The  Road  in  Tuscany :  a  Commentary.  By  Maurice  Hewlett.  2  vols., 
8vo,  profusely  illustrated  by  Joseph  Pennell.  London :  Macmillan  and  Co., 
2IS. 

245 


246  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

walled  city  with  a  mediaeval  castle,  and  Genoa  the  most 
romantic  of  seaports.  I  have  driven  over  the  Simplon  to 
Milan  and  thence  to  Verona;  from  Bologna  to  Florence; 
from  Parma  to  Ravenna;  from  Leghorn  to  Rome,  across 
that  weird  Maremma.  Ah  !  it  was  fifty  years  ago  and  more 
—  before  you  were  born  or  thought  of,  my  friend  Maurice  — 
and  yet  you  have  brought  back  to  me  the  full  sense  of  glorious 
exaltation  in  the  Italian  travel  by  road  —  trasumanar  signifi- 
car  per  verba  non  si  porria. 

I  remember  how  a  dear  old  lady  said  to  me  when  I  was 
about  to  start  on  the  most  memorable  tour  of  my  whole 
life,  "Take  care,"  she  said,  "to  go  by  road.  There  is  no 
happiness  in  life  to  compare  with  an  Italian  vettura,  drawn 
by  four  horses,  and  the  one  you  love  best  by  your  side!" 
I  was  more  modest  in  my  equipage.  But  I  remember,  as  we 
crossed  the  Simplon  and  opened  on  the  valley  of  Domo 
D'Ossola,  how  our  vetturino  sprang  up  on  his  box,  cracked 
his  whip,  and  shouted  "Ecco  1J Italia!" 

I  had  thought  the  supreme  joy  of  the  Italian  vettura,  as 
Ruskin  says,  that  which  was  "virtually  one's  home,"  day 
after  day,  was  an  irrecoverable  sensation,  to  be  reckoned  with 
the  few  memories  which  only  threescore  years  and  ten  can 
give  —  such  as  those  other  memories,  to  have  heard  in  their 
prime  Rachel,  Grisi,  and  Lablache;  to  have  read  David 
Copperfield  and  Vanity  Fair  month  by  month  in  their  early 
shilling  numbers ;  to  have  seen  the  British  fleet  under  sails ; 
to  have  seen  French  cathedrals  yet  unrestored;  and  Rome 
as  it  was  seen  by  Byron,  as  it  was  drawn  by  Piranesi.  Yet 
Maurice  Hewlett  now  shows  us  how,  if  we  care  and  are  not 
"pressed  for  time,"  nor  slaves  to  Baedeker  or  Cook,  we  may 
see  Tuscany  still  in  the  way  that  Milton  and  Goethe,  Rogers 
and  Turner,  Shelley  and  Ruskin,  saw  it :  when  men  travelled 
to  see  the  country  and  the  people,  and  were  not  shot  like 


ECCO   LA  TOSCANA!  247 

luggage  through  tunnels  from  one  museum  to  another,  from 
one  Grand  Hotel  to  the  next,  with  hardly  anything  to  remind 
them  that  they  had  quitted  Charing  Cross.  There  are  the 
Tuscan  roads,  the  hill  villages,  the  towns  of  the  plain,  the 
vetture  still  —  more  likely  now  with  two  horses  than  four  or 
five  —  but  the  vetturino  is  there,  the  Tuscan  folk  are  there 
still.  And  Maurice  Hewlett  will  show  you  how  to  find  them. 

Hewlett  has  some  special  qualifications  for  a  book  like  this. 
Ten  years  ago  he  published  his  first  books  upon  Tuscany. 
Ever  since  he  has  been  a  close  student  of  Italian  history, 
poetry,  art,  topography,  and  national  character.  And  he  is 
one  of  the  first  living  masters  of  the  entire  Dantesque  cycle 
in  all  its  breadth  and  its  depth.  He  calls  his  book  The  Road. 
It  is  a  whim  of  Maurice  to  give  us  conceits  on  his  title-page, 
and  sometimes,  I  fear,  inside  as  well.  But  there  is  a  great 
deal  more  than  the  Road  in  this  book.  First,  there  is  history 
—  not  drum  and  trumpet  or  Heralds'  College  history  —  but 
the  memories  which  have  moulded  races,  families,  cities,  and 
lands.  Then  there  is  very  acute  and  searching  race  history, 
what  they  call  anthropology  or  demology,  ingenious  musing 
upon  local  and  generic  types,  often,  we  fancy,  too  ingenious 
and  fine-spun,  as  the  demology  of  local  types  usually  becomes. 
Then  there  is  topographical  realism  about  what  you  see  and 
do  and  hear  on  the  road,  as  you  may  find  it  in  Horace  Wai- 
pole,  Boswell,  Eustace,  and  Laurence  Sterne. 

Our  "carriage-gentleman"  has  the  same  horror  of  rail- 
roads as  Ruskin  himself.  Pierre  Loti  wrote  an  elaborate 
book  about  India  from  Benares  to  Ceylon  without  having 
met  a  trace  of  anything  British.  And  Maurice  Hewlett  trots 
leisurely  along  the  highways  and  bye-ways  of  Italy,  from 
Ventimiglia  to  Orbetello,  without  once  having  seen  or  heard 
of  a  railroad  in  those  parts.  This  is  how  some  of  us  saw 
Italy  fifty  years  ago.  But  it  can  be  done  to-day  "in  the  mind's 


248  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

eye,"  Maurizio !  Dante  and  the  Dantesque  legend  meet  us 
in  almost  every  page.  Though  he  rails  at  museums,  galleries, 
and  art  critics  in  general,  Hewlett  has  a  good  deal  to  say 
about  pictures,  statues,  tombs,  and  more  about  baptistries, 
campanili,  and  cloisters.  But  the  essential  aim  of  the  book 
is  to  paint  for  us  the  roads,  the  wayside  humours,  the  hostel- 
ries,  the  calvaries,  the  gardens,  the  rivers,  bridges,  castles, 
and  abbeys,  the  old  world  stories  of  romance  and  crime,  the 
garrulous  peasants,  and  the  bathycolpous  glaucopid  Tuscan 
girls  who  make  our  roadster  amorous  and  poetic.  What  is 
the  authority  for  giving  to  Dante's  Beatrice  green  eyes  ?  The 
only  green-eyed  charmer  we  ever  heard  of  was  Becky  Sharp 
in  Vanity  Fair.  But  by  these  green  eyes  hangs  a  tale. 

Hewlett  seizes,  reiterates,  and  illustrates  that  which  is  no 
doubt  the  true  key  of  Italian  character,  the  real  explanation 
of  Italian  history  —  the  fierce  local  patriotism,  that  flame  of 
pride,  jealousy,  egoism,  that  politico,  del  campanile,  which 
from  the  age  of  Boethius  to  that  of  Pio  X.  has  coloured  the 
art,  the  manners,  the  language,  and  the  annals  of  the  Penin- 
sula. No  observer  has  ever  gone  more  truly  home  to  the 
intense  burgher  jealousy  of  the  Italian  townsman  than  does 
Hewlett.  'And  I  know  no  other  witness  who  can  testify  to 
the  same  municipal  pride  in  a  petty  hill  village,  and  in  the 
wards  of  a  decaying  city.  Few  travellers  can  tell  such  ex- 
periences in  centres  so  small  and  insignificant.  We  all 
know  how  the  possession  of  a  single  picture  made  one  ward 
of  Florence  to  be  called  the  Gay  Borough.  I  remember  the 
scorn  of  the  true  Trasteverini  for  the  populace  of  the  Left 
Bank,  in  days  before  modern  Rome  had  again  become  a  new 
•colluvies  gentium.  And  I  have  heard  a  Syracusan,  proud  of 
his  ruins,  call  the  people  of  Palermo  quei  Saraceni.  But  few 
of  us  have  witnessed  the  feuds  of  Siena  between  Giraffa  and 
the  Goose :  the  Snail  and  the  Dragon.  But  then  few  of  us 


ECCO   LA  TOSCANA!  249 

have  ever  known  Livia,  "The  most  vividly  beautiful  girl  I 
have  ever  seen,"  says  this  enthusiast  after  beauty,  whose 
effect  "  was  that  of  a  moonlight  night,  compact  as  that  is,  of 
ivory  pallors  and  velvet  darks,  at  once  clear  and  cold,  severe 
and  calm."  This  is  poetic  but  vague :  all  about  a  girl  in  the 
streets  of  Siena,  who  may  have  been  clear  and  calm,  but 
was  certainly  neither  cold  nor  severe,  who  had  no  hat,  white 
stockings  with  loose  slippers,  a  green  skirt,  and  green  eyes. 
Well !  if  she  had  green  eyes,  I  should  not  care  a  fig  for  her 
myself.  And  Dante's  Beatrice,  I  know,  had  dark  eyes  — 
not  green. 

The  history  in  this  book  is  continuous  and  masterly.  It 
is  history  of  the  right  sort  —  the  unlocking  of  social  and  in- 
tellectual movements,  the  unearthing  the  roots  of  that  which 
we  can  see  to-day,  that  compound  of  languor  and  passion; 
of  love  of  beauty  and  tolerance  of  squalor;  that  intellectual 
subtlety  and  that  proneness  to  grovel  in  the  petty,  the  child- 
ish, and  the  mean.  How  often  Hewlett's  tales  of  mediaeval 
Tuscany  remind  us  of  Greek  life  in  our  old  classics,  of  the 
scuffles  between  rival  towns  in  Thucydides,  the  wild  games 
in  Aristophanes,  the  religious  festivals,  the  materialist  wor- 
ship, the  local  deities,  the  poetry,  the  fissiparous  and  dis- 
persive genius,  the  restlessness  and  the  sloth,  the  desperate 
burgher  passion,  the  incapacity  for  national  cohesion. 

The  appendices  resume  in  a  more  regular  and  continuous 
form  the  flashes  of  historical  insight  which  scintillate  along 
every  page  of  Hewlett's  book,  touching  as  with  deep  sunset 
glow  the  ruined  tower,  the  smoke-stained  and  bedaubed 
tomb  of  a  saint,  the  mediaeval  municipio,  the  gloomy  and 
ordurous  lane  in  a  rotting  hill  town.  In  smaller  type  at  the 
end  of  the  chapter  it  has  pleased  our  author  to  paint  many 
an  episode  of  the  old  times,  and  here  and  there  a  new  "Little 
Novel  of  Italy."  Especially  to  be  noted  are  the  following: 


250  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

the  history  of  Florence,  of  Siena,  of  Arezzo ;  the  biographies 
of  Castruccio  Castracane,  of  Ser  Martino  and  Donna  Berta, 
types  of  the  mediaeval  tyrant  and  the  Florentine  burgher. 
But  it  is  not  history  as  we  find  it  in  Guicciardini,  Sismondi, 
Roscoe,  Ranke,  Symonds,  or  Creighton.  It  is  history  accord- 
ing to  Maurice  Hewlett,  which  is  a  different  thing,  a  singu- 
larly idiosyncratic  thing,  very  fascinating  and  very  edifying 
I  find  it. 

The  distinctive  and  rare  note  of  this  book  is  its  intensely 
personal  point  of  view.  No  writer,  unless  it  be  Ruskin,  has 
ever  taken  us  to  a  country,  so  bent  on  making  us  see  what 
he  sees,  knowing  what  he  knows,  enjoying  what  he  enjoys, 
scorning  what  he  scorns.  The  two  volumes  are  saturated 
with  personal  tastes,  fancies,  dreams,  loves,  and  whimsies. 
That  is  what  a  book  of  travel  ought  to  be,  as  were  the  Sen- 
timental Journey,  Childe  Harold,  Corinne,  Reisebilde,  Pra- 
terita.  Else  we  had  better  have  a  mere  gazetteer  or  Herr 
Baedeker's  truly  exact,  careful,  and  useful  handbooks.  It 
is  all  very  well  to  sneer  at  Baedeker;  but  I  am  certain  that 
Hewlett  has  carried  a  red  book  at  some  time  or  other.  I  can 
remember  the  days  before  Baedeker,  and  how  many  a  sight 
we  missed,  how  much  time  we  lost  for  want  of  knowing  dis- 
tances, times,  and  where  to  find  the  key.  It  is  this  personal 
note  in  every  line  of  this  book  which  makes  it  so  delight- 
ful to  read — so  troublesome  to  "review."  He  puzzles  his 
critics,  just  as  Ruskin  did.  They  "don't  know  where  to 
have  him."  Exactly  so!  It  is  not  a  history  of  Tuscany; 
nor  a  guide-book  to  Tuscany ;  nor  a  Tuscan  romance ;  nor 
a  study  of  Tuscan  art ;  it  is  simply  —  Maurice  Hewlett  in 
Tuscany. 

This  personal  note  reaches  its  acme  in  the  two  chapters, 
"The  World  is  a  Garden"  and  "Thoughts  in  Church," 
devoted  to  the  passionate  humanism  of  the  quattrocento  and 


ECCO   LA  TOSCANA!  251 

to  the  gross  paganism  in  the  worship  of  the  Renascence  and 
ever  since.  Why  Hewlett  should  go  out  of  his  way  to  describe 
the  Renascence  as  "the  theory  that  the  world  is  a  garden"  we 
will  not  inquire.  The  Renascence  is  simply  Humanism  — 
i.e.  the  sense,  or  the  discovery,  that  the  proper  business  of 
mankind  is  man;  the  essential  knowledge  is  to  know  him- 
self and  the  world  in  which  he  finds  himself ;  the  true  aim  of 
human  life  is  to  make  the  best  of  man  and  of  the  world. 
That  is  a  perfectly  reasonable  creed,  leading,  by  its  emanci- 
pating force,  to  glorious  results,  and  ending,  for  want  of  a 
true  philosophy  and  an  adequate  faith,  in  horrible  corruptions. 
But  why  use  the  weak  French  term  —  Renaissance  —  for  a 
movement  which  was  essentially  European,  but  began  in 
Italy,  and  was  promulgated  by  Italians?  Years  ago  I  in- 
sisted that  Renascence  is  the  proper  term  —  nearer  to  the 
Italian  origin,  and  free  from  the  suggestion  of  outlandish, 
petty,  and  affected  meaning  which  a  French  word  implies. 

It  is  a  welcome  relief  to  find  this  book  almost  free  from  the 
excessive  Hewlettism  —  that  modern  variant  of  euphuism  — 
of  which  we  were  getting  somewhat  weary.  The  intensely 
vivid  and  pictorial  speech  which  has  made  him  one  of  the 
very  first  prose  writers  of  this  age  is  now  being  mellowed  and 
refined.  Nothing  is  lost  in  brilliancy  by  softening  the  more 
violent  tropes.  Santa  Maria  Novella  has  a  facade  "bitingly 
personal" ;  San  Michele  is  "a  church  of  delirium" ;  Orvieto 
is  "naked";  Siena  is  "a  tiger-moth  swooning  on  a  rock." 
How  a  church  can  bite,  can  swoon,  strip,  and  go  mad,  we 
have  to  imagine.  I  know  these  venerable  fanes  pretty  well; 
but  I  never  saw  them  at  these  gambols,  nor  do  I  see  the 
analogy  between  one  of  the  vastest  cathedrals  in  Italy  and  a 
moth.  They  were  all  rather  unsuccessful  attempts  of  Ital- 
ians to  acclimatise  an  architecture  for  which  they  had  no  real 
genius.  And  so,  I  gather,  does  Hewlett  think.  But  where 


252  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

does  the  mad  dog  or  the  tiger-moth  come  in?  My  dear 
Maurice,  if  you  would  only  be  a  little  less  cryptic,  you  would 
be  the  finest  writer  of  English  prose  of  this  age. 

One  of  the  most  charming  —  most  important  —  chapters 
is  the  last,  "The  Heart  of  the  Country."  It  is  concerned 
with  the  folk  songs,  the  people's  poetry,  still  as  pure,  as 
native,  as  pathetic  as  ever.  The  people's  poetry  of  Tuscany 
is  not  only  one  of  the  most  beautiful  forms  of  living  art,  but 
by  its  union  of  delicacy  and  tenderness  it  is  one  of  the  most 
piercing  revelations  of  national  character.  Alone  it  serves 
to  redeem  the  taint  of  so  much  blood,  lust,  treachery,  affec- 
tation, meanness,  which  stain  Italian  annals  and  manners. 
These  rispetti  I  have  known  and  loved  ever  since  I  first  read 
Dante  with  Aurelio  Safn  once  Triumvir  in  Rome,  in  the 
year  1850.  Hewlett  is  right  in  finding  in  this  truly  indigenous 
poetry  "the  heart  of  the  country." 

One  must  not  overlook  the  wonderful  realism  and  vitality 
of  the  illustrations  by  Joseph  Pennell.  Their  profusion 
illumines  and  explains  almost  every  page.  Every  aspect  of 
Tuscany  is  recorded  here  —  cities,  towers,  churches,  roads, 
rivers,  bridges,  gardens,  villas,  foliage,  landscapes,  ruins, 
lanes,  and  porticoes.  I  know  not  which  to  admire  more,  the 
refined  pen-and-ink  sketches  of  buildings,  gardens,  and  hill- 
crests,  or  the  powerful  chalk  drawings  of  vaulted  interiors 
and  sombre  alleys.  They  have  the  gift  of  truly  depicting 
the  architecture,  a  gift  which  so  few  painters,  not  even 
Turner,  chose  to  cultivate,  which  they  leave  to  scientific 
architects  such  as  Ruskin.  To  my  eye,  these  drawings,  with 
all  their  photographic  truth  of  form,  too  often  magnify  the 
scale,  by  Prout's  artifice  of  diminishing  the  figures  which 
measure  the  buildings.  But  on  the  whole  they  reproduce 
Tuscan  sights  with  marvellous  truth  and  force. 


A   PILGRIMAGE   TO   LOURDES 

1896 

AFTER  my  visit  in  last  September  to  Paris  and  to  Monsieur 
Laffitte  at  Cadillac,  I  went  on  to  Pau  to  perform  a  pilgrimage 
at  the  birthplace  and  ancestral  home  of  Henri  IV. ;  and  thence 
to  Lourdes,  which  I  saw  on  two  occasions  during  the  autumn 
pilgrimages.  A  visit  to  Lourdes  is  very  much  to  be  recom- 
mended to  those  who  care  to  understand  France  of  to-day 
and  Catholicism  as  it  is.  I  cannot  pretend  to  have  studied 
the  matter  very  deeply  —  I  do  not  believe  that  there  is  any- 
thing deep  to  study.  I  give  my  impressions  of  a  coup  d'ceil 
for  what  they  may  be  worth  —  premising  only  that  I  have 
known  the  French  peasant  for  fifty  years,  and  I  think  I  am 
entirely  clear  of  any  Protestant  or  anti- Catholic  bias. 

Any  one  who  goes  to  Lourdes  expecting  to  see  anything 
like  what  M.  Zola  saw,  or,  at  least,  what  he  paints  in  his 
sensational  book,  will  be  rudely  disillusioned.  I  saw  no 
trains  loaded  with  the  sick  and  the  dying,  the  halt  and  the 
blind,  the  ecstatic  and  the  paralytic:  I  saw  no  spasmodic 
emotion,  and  heard  no  agonising  prayers  and  hymns.  The 
priests  and  monks,  the  "sisters"  and  "mothers"  —  of  whom 
there  were  thousands,  were  very  much  the  same  quiet  and 
businesslike  people  we  see  in  any  Catholic  country,  or  even 
in  the  Isle  of  Thanet  or  round  Arundel  in  Sussex.  The  great 
mass  of  the  "pilgrims"  were  ordinary  holiday-makers  in 
their  best  suits,  enjoying  a  few  days'  trip  in  a  lovely  country, 

253 


254  MEMORIES  AND    THOUGHTS 

and  steadily  working  round  the  various  devotional  functions 
with  entire  satisfaction,  with  a  determination  to  do  it  all 
thoroughly,  and  see  all  that  was  to  be  seen,  and  hear  all  that 
was  to  be  heard. 

I  do  not  at  all  mean  that  there  were  no  sick,  no  lame,  no 
excitement,  no  ecstatic  prostrations,  no  church-going,  no 
hymn-singing.  The  various  churches  were  crammed;  the 
services  were  continual;  the  congregations  heartily  and 
reverently  joined.  But  the  sight-seeing,  the  booths,  the 
shows  of  the  fair  were  quite  as  well  attended;  the  picnics 
were  as  gay  and  as  many  as  the  booths;  and  the  prevailing 
air  was  that  of  a  Bank-holiday  crowd  enjoying  a  very  pretty 
scene  in  an  exquisite  spot.  Some  sick,  halt,  and  afflicted  I 
saw,  but  they  were  rare  exceptions.  Out  of  20,000  happy 
and  healthy  people  whom  I  noticed,  I  could  not  count  more 
than  ten  visibly  marked  with  disease,  and  about  as  many  who 
could  not  walk  without  crutches  or  help.  Out  of  some 
thousand  or  so  seated  in  quiet  meditation  round  the  grotto 
of  the  Madonna,  but  two  or  three  behaved  otherwise  than  as 
reverent  persons  ordinarily  behave  in  church.  One  group 
interested  me  much. 

Two  brothers  and  two  sisters  all  in  deep  mourning,  the 
girls  very  young,  in  a  paroxysm  of  distress  and  spiritual  exal- 
tation flung  themselves  on  the  pavement,  fervently  praying 
with  arms  extended  in  the  form  of  a  cross,  until  the  exhausted 
body  fell  forward  prostrate  in  the  dust  which  they  kissed  with 
passionate  veneration.  The  worshippers  round  the  grotto, 
bright  with  a  gilt  image  of  Mary,  but  itself  blackened  with 
the  smoke  of  a  thousand  candles,  and  hung  round  with 
votive  offerings,  seemed  like  ordinary  worshippers  in  any 
Catholic  church.  Nearly  a  thousand  crutches  were  hung 
upon  the  miracle-haunted  rock,  which  the  resident  physician 
assured  a  friend  of  mine  to  his  certain  knowledge  were 


A  PILGRIMAGE  TO   LOURDES  255 

the  crutches  of  lame  persons  who  had  been  healed  at  the 
grotto.  We  visited  the  sacred  spots  and  duly  drank  of 
the  healing  water,  in  spite  of  a  somewhat  sinister  smell  of 
carbolic  round  the  well.  Some  pilgrims  duly  bathed  in  the 
bath  —  where  "swimming  was  strictly  forbidden" — and 
one  young  girl,  ecstatically  declaring  herself  healed  as  she 
came  out,  was  fervently  kissed  by  those  present  in  spite  of 
her  dripping  gown. 

It  was  a  delightful  scene.  Lourdes  itself  is  a  spot  ex- 
quisitely beautiful,  standing  at  the  mouth  of  two  grand 
valleys  which  run  up  to  the  Pyrenean  mountains,  and  crowned 
by  the  donjon  keep  of  an  ancient  feudal  castle.  The  rush- 
ing Gave,  in  two  lucent  torrents,  sweeps  round  the  precipitous 
rocks  on  which  stand  village  and  churches;  and  all  round 
are  fine  hills  clothed  with  green  pasture  and  woods,  and 
topped  with  craggy  pinnacles.  Beyond  the  grotto  are  de- 
licious avenues  of  shady  chestnut  trees  beside  the  swift  river, 
with  grassy  banks  and  mossy  knolls,  wherein  were  hundreds 
of  picnic  parties,  who  having  done  the  round  of  churches 
and  holy  places  were  refreshing  themselves  with  wine  and 
cold  meat.  The  whole  town  and  the  country  round  it  were 
bright  and  gay  with  summer  visitors  and  pleasure  parties. 
The  streets  were  lined  with  thousands  of  shops,  booths,  open- 
air  stands  and  sheds  for  the  sale  of  relics,  mementoes,  images, 
models  of  the  grotto  and  the  churches,  copies  of  the  Madonna, 
rosaries,  photographs  of  Bernadette,  and  all  the  myriad 
trumpery  of  a  religious  fair.  I  am  bound  to  say  that  more 
tasteless  trash  was  never  collected  together.  I  looked  with  a 
sinking  heart  in  vain  for  a  single  article  that  was  other  than 
mere  conventional  and  machine-made  rubbish ;  and  I  could 
not  help  remembering  that  our  word  tawdry  comes  from  the 
cheap  finery  that  used  to  be  bought  at  the  fair  of  St.  Ethel- 
dreda.  A  fair  the  whole  thing  was.  Hotels,  eating-houses, 


256  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

wine-shops,  drinking-gardens  and  saloons,  lodging-houses, 
stalls  for  confectionery  or  various  viands  and  drinks,  itinerant 
venders,  toys,  panoramas,  dioramas,  vehicles,  landaus,  omni- 
buses and  bath  chairs  crowded  the  streets  and  lanes.  The 
whole  scene  was  like  Margate  or  Brighton  on  Whit  Monday, 
though  very  much  prettier  and  not  quite  so  rowdy.  I  see 
nothing  to  blame  in  this.  If  20,000  hard- working  men  and 
women  are  taken  to  a  mountain  village  for  forty-eight  hours, 
they  must  eat  and  drink  and  be  housed.  They  can't  be  in 
church  or  grotto  the  whole  time.  They  will  naturally  need 
to  be  occupied  and  amused,  and  they  will  wish  to  carry  home 
some  trifling  record  of  their  visit. 

Protestants  to  whom  religion  means  silent  communing  of 
the  Soul  with  its  Maker,  are  wont  to  treat  scenes  like  this  as 
somewhat  profane,  or,  at  least,  unspiritual.  But  Catholics, 
we  know,  take  a  much  more  genial,  sociable,  spectacular,  and 
all-in-the-day's  work  conception  of  religion  —  as  they  cer- 
tainly did  in  the  Ages  of  Faith.  The  scene  at  Lourdes  re- 
called to  me  the  mediaeval  pilgrimages  and  sacred  fairs  at 
which  trade,  society,  amusement,  art,  and  literature  made  up 
quite  half  of  the  attraction.  So  it  is  with  the  pilgrimages  to 
Benares,  and  so  it  was  with  the  festival  at  Olympia.  The 
dioramas,  panoramas,  shows,  and  trinkets  at  Lourdes  vividly 
reproduce  the  miracle-plays,  the  gaieties,  gossip,  and  fairings 
of  Canterbury,  Reims,  Loretto,  or  Rome.  The  interest  of 
Lourdes  lies  in  a  spontaneous  revival  of  a  mediaeval  pilgrim- 
age —  of  course  without  the  heroic  enthusiasm  and  unreason- 
ing passion  of  a  pilgrimage  to  Jerusalem  or  Rome  in  the 
eleventh  century,  but  far  less  worldly  and  unholy  than  pil- 
grimages were  wont  to  be  about  the  sixteenth  century. 

The  pilgrims  had  come  from  every  part  of  France,  almost 
of  Europe  —  from  the  farthest  coast  of  Brittany,  from  the 
seafaring  people  of  Normandy,  Belgium,  and  Holland,  from 


A  PILGRIMAGE   TO    LOURDES  257 

the  plains  of  Lombardy,  and  the  mountains  of  Auvergne, 
from  the  Basque  seaboard,  and  the  valleys  of  Northern  Spain. 
Huge  caravans  in  four  heavy  trains  came  from  Tours  and  the 
Loire;  others  from  Lyons  and  the  Rhone;  others  from 
Toulouse,  Carcassonne,  and  the  Mediterranean  coast.  Fish- 
ermen, shepherds,  ploughmen,  vine-dressers,  with  the  mis- 
cellaneous crowds  of  towns  big  and  small.  Nineteen  out  of 
twenty  were  peasants,  most  of  them  from  very  rude  districts ; 
and  not  one  man  and  woman  in  a  hundred  seemed  to  belong 
to  the  cultivated  classes.  It  was  the  most  motley,  picturesque, 
and  old-world  gathering  I  ever  beheld,  even  in  Italy  or  the 
Tyrol  of  thirty  years  ago. 

The  three  memorial  churches  were  crowded  to  suffocation, 
and  the  various  functions  were  continued  hour  by  hour. 
Each  excursion  party  had  its  own  hours;  sometimes  the 
church  was  reserved  for  men,  sometimes  for  women ;  at  other 
times  for  all  comers  alike.  The  worshippers  showed  great 
zeal  and  devoutness ;  and  the  hymns  and  chants  were  shouted 
out  from  a  thousand  throats  with  pious  but  unmusical  energy. 
Every  fourth  or  fifth  man  or  woman  seemed  to  have  some 
ecclesiastical  function,  or  to  belong  to  some  sacerdotal  or 
monastic  order ;  and  all  the  parties  and  groups  were  carefully 
piloted  by  religious  guides. 

The  pilgrimage  to  Lourdes  has  now  become  an  institution 
of  a  very  mixed  kind  —  organised  on  business  and  profes- 
sional lines,  and  naturally  becoming  more  and  more  a  sum- 
mer holiday.  To  a  great  extent  it  is  a  gigantic  Cook's  Tour, 
admirably  managed  and  carried  on  with  immense  energy  by 
cures  and  devout  persons  in  every  corner  of  France.  We 
have  seen  our  Anglican  canons  and  priests  get  up  successful 
religious  holiday-tours  and  turn  their  clerical  societies  into 
excursion  agencies.  The  French  priesthood  has  done  this  on 
a  far  larger  scale.  From  every  corner  of  France  they  send 


258  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

up  excursion  trains  of  parishioners,  whom  the  railways  con- 
vey at  fabulously  low  rates,  and  whom  the  canny  Bearnais 
are  delighted  to  house,  feed,  and  supply.  The  Bishop  of 
Tarbes  has  poured  a  veritable  Pactolus  through  his  simple 
diocese  with  the  usual  results ;  and  the  Lourdes  pilgrimage  has 
now  become  one  of  the  biggest  excursion  businesses  on  record. 
But  it  is  far  from  being  even  yet  a  mere  Crystal  Palace  or 
Margate  at  holiday  time.  It  has  given  an  immense  stimulus 
to  Catholic  ceremonial  throughout  France;  and  it  has  been 
a  real  fillip  to  the  Church.  It  is  evidently  quite  spontaneous 
and  has  worked  up  from  below.  The  higher  ecclesiastical 
authorities  did  their  best  to  damp  it  down,  and  for  nearly 
twenty  years  they  succeeded  in  doing  so.  The  present  gen- 
eration has  seen  in  France  a  recrudescence  of  theological 
ardour,  and  it  has  forced  the  Church  to  give  official  sanction 
to  the  pilgrim  business  at  Lourdes.  Those  who  fancy  France 
to  be  utterly  Voltairean  would  be  rudely  undeceived  if  they 
saw  Lourdes.  At  least  half  the  excursionists  are  visibly 
believers;  and  the  fishermen  of  Brittany  and  Belgium  and 
the  herdsmen  of  the  Cevennes  and  the  Pyrenees  are  fervent 
and  devoted  Churchmen.  About  half  of  the  excursionists 
are  no  doubt  ordinary  holiday  trippers,  most  of  them  having 
no  objection  to  wear  an  emblem  or  to  listen  to  a  mass.  Here 
and  there  are  scattered  a  few  fanatical  pilgrims  who  expect 
to  be  cured  or  who  believe  in  a  cure.  And  here  and  there 
are  a  few  tourists  on  cycles  or  a  few  curious  observers  as  I 
was  myself.  Altogether,  I  came  away  with  the  impression 
that  a  pilgrimage  to  Lourdes  was  a  sight  from  which  one 
might  learn  many  things,  both  of  the  past  and  the  present; 
and  that  he  who  thinks  the  Catholic  Church  to  be  decrepit 
or  the  Catholic  Faith  to  be  moribund  in  France  is  very  much 
in  error.  As  to  one  half,  Lourdes  is  a  glorified  Cook's  ex- 
cursion office  for  rural  France.  As  to  the  other  half,  it  is  a 
very  solid  and  thriving  phase  of  the  revived  Catholic  Church. 


L'ESPRIT   FRANCAIS 

[Reply  to  a  request  from  the  Gaulois  of  Paris  to  classify  the  writers  -who  best 
express  the  French  esprit.] 

LONDRES,  Janvier  i8gQ. 

MONSIEUR  —  En  recevant  votre  gracieuse  invitation  je 
re*ponds  a  la  question :  —  Quels  sont  les  e"crivains  du  passe* 
qui  ont  le  mieux  exprim^  le  vrai  esprit  f  rancais  ?  Je  m'amuse 
a  compiler  une  Acade'mie  de  trente  "  Immortels "  ve*ritables, 
ranges  en  trois  decades.  Les  auteurs  du  premier  ordre  sont 
deja  couronnes  par  le  jugement  des  siecles,  et  1'opinion 
e*clairee  en  Angleterre  est  en  pleine  harmonic  avec  celle  de 
la  France. 

I 

i.  •  Moliere.  —  2.  Voltaire.  —  3.  Corneille.  —  4.  Racine. 
—  5.  Rabelais.  —  6.  Buffon.  —  7.  Bossuet.  —  8.  Montes- 
quieu. —  9.  Diderot.  —  10.  Pascal. 

II 

i.  Fabliaux  du  Moyen-Age.  —  2.  Froissart.  —  3.  Mon- 
taigne. —  4.  Vauvenargues.  —  5.  Fdnelon.  —  6.  Madame 
de  Se'vigne'.  —  7.  La  Fontaine.  —  8.  Le  Sage.  —  9.  Rous- 
seau. —  10.  Balzac. 

m 

i.  Victor  Hugo.  —  2.  Be"ranger.  —  3.  Due  de  Saint-Si- 
mon. —  4.  P.-L.  Courrier.  —  5.  A.  de  Musset.  —  6.  George 
Sand.  —  7.  The'ophile  Gautier.  —  8.  Alexandre  Dumas 
pere.  —  9.  Sainte-Beuve.  —  10.  Jules  Michelet. 

Agre"ez,  Monsieur,  mes  meilleures  salutations. 

FREDERIC  HARRISON. 
259 


A   WORD    FOR   ENGLAND 

1898 

As  a  real  patriot,  I  grieve  to  see  how  the  ancient  and  be- 
loved name  of  my  Fatherland  is  being  driven  out  of  use  by 
the  incessant  advance  of  Imperial  ideas.  A  politician  nowa- 
days hardly  ventures  to  speak  of  his  own  country  by  its  his- 
toric name.  When  Mr.  Morley,  or  Sir  William  Harcourt, 
or  Mr.  Asquith  —  true  Englishmen  if  any  men  are  —  go 
down  to  address  their  constituents,  they  are  corrected  by  an 
angry  roar  if  they  chance  to  speak  of  England  or  of  English- 
men. And  they  hasten  to  apologise  to  the  electors  who  send 
them  to  Parliament  for  the  slip  of  the  tongue  which  led  them 
into  the  blunder  of  calling  our  country  "England,"  and  of  re- 
ferring with  pride  to  the  deeds  of  our  countrymen  by  the  style 
of  "Englishmen."  It  has  come  then  to  this.  It  is  a  "slip 
of  the  tongue"  —  a  "blunder"  —  to  speak  of  our  country  by 
the  name  which  it  has  made  glorious  for  a  thousand  years, 
or  to  call  oneself  a  countryman  of  Cromwell,  Shakespeare, 
Elizabeth,  the  Henrys,  the  Edwards,  of  Harold,  of  Alfred. 
One  of  the  curious  results  of  the  late  schism  has  been  the 
driving  of  Liberal  politicians  out  of  England,  with  the 
melancholy  consequence  that  they  are  warned  off  calling 
themselves  Englishmen  at  all.  Lord  Rosebery,  Sir  H. 
Campbell-Bannerman,  and  Mr.  Bryce  were  brought  up  as 
Scots,  in  the  habit  of  calling  themselves  "Britons";  though 
why  Home-Rulers  should  call  the  United  Kingdom  "Britain," 
I  fail  to  see.  One  always  expects  Scots  to  call  themselves 

260 


A   WORD    FOR  ENGLAND  261 

"  Britons,"  if  they  cannot  well  say  "  Scots."  They  can  hardly 
apply  the  term  "Briton"  to  Nelson  and  Wellington,  to  the 
two  Pitts,  to  Walpole,  Cromwell,  and  Wolsey.  If  they  think 
it  finer  to  talk  of  "Britain"  rather  than  England,  they  must 
do  so.  They  cannot  help  being  Scots,  as  Dr.  Johnson  said. 
I  should  think  the  term  "Scot"  was  better  than  "Briton," 
if  they  must  assert  the  race  tradition.  But  I  very  much 
object  to  their  forcing  us  to  drop  the  venerable  name  of 
"England,"  and  the  proud  title  of  "Englishmen."  England 
is  my  native  land,  and  the  name  is  good  enough  for  me. 
Irishmen  and  Scots  can  call  themselves  what  they  like.  So 
may  Canadians,  Australians,  New  Zealanders,  and  Rhode- 
sians.  But,  in  spite  of  all  temptations  to  belong  to  these 
mighty  nations,  I  remain  an  Englishman.  I  am  proud  of 
the  name  and  of  its  1300  years  of  record.  And  I  pity  the 
Englishman  who  is  ready  to  drop  it,  like  a  Smith  or  a  Brown 
who  has  inherited  a  family  estate,  and  takes  on  a  name  which 
suggests  broader  acres  and  more  baronial  pretensions. 

What  are  we,  citizens  of  no  mean  country,  to  call  ourselves, 
if  we  give  up  the  style  of  Englishmen?  I  object  most  posi- 
tively to  "Briton."  I  am  not  willing  to  call  my  native  land 
"Britain."  Why  "Briton"  and  "Britain"?  These  terms 
are  wrong  on  every  ground  —  whether  of  history,  of  con- 
stitutional right,  of  language,  or  of  justice.  They  deliberately 
exclude  Ireland  and  Irishmen.  They  are  even  used  in  order 
to  exclude  Ireland  and  Irishmen.  The  style  "England"  no 
more  excludes  Ireland  than  it  excludes  Scotland,  or  Canada, 
or  Australia.  The  use  of  the  style  "Great  Britain"  —  a 
truly  silly  and  almost  comic  compound  name  of  our  small 
island  —  was  invented  to  appease  the  jealousy  of  Scots  when 
they  accepted  the  Union.  And  it  was  acquiesced  in  by  Eng- 
lishmen in  a  spirit  of  good-nature  and  almost  as  a  joke.  It 
was  used  in  diplomacy,  in  Georgian  poetry,  and  in  tall  kinds 


262  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

of  rhetoric.  But  we  Englishmen  never  seriously  took  to 
"Britain"  —  great  or  small  —  in  the  stress  of  life.  Nelson 
would  have  scorned  to  signal  —  "Great  Britain  expects  every 
man  to  do  his  duty."  The  poet  never  ^said. —  "  Britain,  with 
all  thy  faults  I  love  thee  well !"  Let  us  imagine  the  bathos 
of  correcting  the  "slips  of  tongue"  in  the  Laureate's  "Ode  to 
Wellington."  Try  this:  "The  last  great  Briton  is  low." 
"For  this  is  Britain's  greatest  son."  If  the  Wesleys  were 
Irish,  this  would  be  ridiculous.  But  "Englishman"  and 
"England"  may  properly  describe  every  subject  of  our 
Queen,  and  every  part  of  her  dominions. 

Ever  since  the  Union  of  Ireland,  through  the  whole  of  this 
century,  the  use  of  the  style  "Britain"  to  describe  the  United 
Kingdom  has  been  a  misnomer.  It  has  been  bad  in  law, 
false  in  history,  unjust  to  one  of  the  three  nations,  and  utterly 
anomalous  in  any  point  of  view.  Scots  have  insisted  on  it, 
because  it  gratifies  Scotch  pride  and  snubs  Irish  pride.  It 
is  a  real  offence  in  a  politician,  whether  he  be  Home-Ruler  or 
Unionist,  to  allow  Scotch  pawkiness  to  jockey  both  England 
and  Ireland  out  of  the  running.  One  cannot  say  whether 
Home-Rulers  or  Unionists  are  the  greater  sinners  against 
their  own  principles,  when  they  use  the  terms  "Britain"  and 
"Britons,"  though  they  mean  the  United  Kingdom  of  Eng- 
land, Scotland,  and  Ireland,  and  all  the  subjects  of  Her 
Majesty.  "Britain,"  which  is  supposed  to  include  both 
Wales  and  Scotland,  most  distinctly  shuts  out  Ireland ;  and 
every  time  they  use  the  term  "Britain"  to  denote  the  Three 
Kingdoms,  politicians  are  giving  fresh  offence  —  and  just 
offence  —  to  Irishmen,  and  justify  the  claim  for  a  full  recog- 
nition of  Irish  nationality.  If  English  Home-Rulers  do  this, 
they  are  plainly  minimising  the  claim  of  Ireland  to  be  an 
equal  member  of  the  composite  State.  If  Unionists  do  this, 
they  are  treating  as  a  nullity  the  Act  of  Union  with  Ireland. 


A   WORD   FORiENGLAND  263 

Irishmen  may  very  fairly  say  —  "  Whilst  politicians,  whether 
Liberal  or  Conservative,  combine  to  ignore  Ireland  in  speak- 
ing of  the  United  Kingdom,  we  shall  continue  to  cry  out  that 
Ireland  is  treated  as  a  dependency,  and  not  as  a  constituent 
part  of  the  Crown !"  There  is  no  answer  to  this.  And  it  is 
a  great  deal  more  than  an  accident  of  speech.  It  is  too  true 
that  not  a  few  of  those  who  talk  about  Britain,  when  they 
mean  the  United  Kingdom,  deliberately  choose  to  give  a 
prerogative  vote  to  England  and  Scotland.  But  that  Mr. 
A.  J.  Balfour,  or  Mr.  John  Morley,  should  talk  of  "Britain" 
when  they  mean  the  Queen's  Realm,  is  enough  to  make  the 
blood  of  a  patriotic  Irishman  tingle  in  his  veins. 

It  makes  my  blood  tingle,  as  a  patriotic  Englishman,  when 
I  see  the  silly,  unhistoric,  and  bombastic  term  "Briton" 
supplanting  the  ancient  and  grand  name  of  "Englishman." 
All  that  is  truly  great  in  our  poetry,  in  our  history,  in  our 
language,  and  our  household  words  centres  in  "England." 
England  is  the  home  of  our  Monarchy,  our  Parliament,  our 
Government.  In  England  is  the  centre  of  finance,  commerce, 
army,  navy,  art,  and  literature,  almost  as  much  as  Paris  is 
the  centre  of  France,  far  more  than  Prussia  is  the  centre  of 
Germany,  or  Rome  the  centre  of  Italy.  I  do  not  assert  that 
this  fact  is  enough  to  compel  other  nations  under  the  Crown 
to  accept  "England"  as  their  common  title,  if  they  refuse  to 
do  so.  But  it  shows  how  absurdly  inadequate  is  "Britain" 
to  give  that  common  title.  If  "England"  is  to  be  tabooed 
what  are  we  going  to  call  our  country?  It  is  ridiculous  to 
say  "The  United  Kingdom  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland," 
every  time  we  wish  to  describe  the  Queen's  Realm.  It  is  a 
pitiful  case  for  a  people  if  they  cannot  agree  upon  a  handy 
name  for  their  own  Fatherland.  Frenchmen  can  speak  of 
France,  Germans  of  Germany,  Italians  of  Italy,  Russians  of 
Russia.  It  is  a  sound  and  noble  form  of  national  pride. 


264  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

Are  we  to  be  forbidden  to  speak  of  "England,"  or  else  to  be 
driven  to  the  cumbrous  periphrasis  of  the  "  United  Kingdom, 
and  so  forth"  ?  Germany,  Italy,  and  Russia  are  made  up  of 
many  composite  states  and  nationalities,  having  different 
histories,  habits,  and  even  dialects  and  laws.  But  they  can 
all  consent  to  be  known  by  the  common  style  of  Germany, 
Italy,  or  Russia.  If  the  subjects  of  our  Queen  cannot  accept 
a  common  style,  there  must  be  something  ominously  wrong 
in  our  aggregate  realm. 

Even  if  we  could  use  in  practice  the  preposterous  sentence 
which  is  the  legal  and  formal  style  of  the  Three  Kingdoms, 
what  about  England  over  the  ocean?  We  have  lately  been 
told  how  important  and  vast  a  part  of  the  whole  nation  is 
Canada,  Australia,  South  Africa,  and  scores  of  lands  in  both 
hemispheres.  Great  Britain  is  a  speck  on  the  vast  area  of 
the  lands  which  acknowledge  Victoria.  Why  are  these  little 
islands  to  give  their  name  to  the  huge  congeries  of  lands  and 
peoples  which  obey  our  Queen?  If  Scots  cannot  accept 
"England"  as  the  national  style,  just  as  Welshmen  have 
done,  and  Canadians  and  Australians  have  done,  by  what 
right  can  Scots  force  on  Canadians,  Australians,  and  the  rest 
a  new-fangled  name  which  exclusively  belongs  to  these 
islands?  The  hundred  nations,  races,  and  tongues  which 
formed  the  Roman  Empire,  all  called  themselves  Romans, 
and  were  proud  of  that  name.  It  was  a  perpetual  source  of 
strength.  Even  Byzantine  Greeks  for  ten  centuries  called 
themselves  Romans,  and  Mussulmans  still  call  Constanti- 
nople "Roum."  That  was  a  real  Empire,  and  a  signal 
example  of  a  national  nucleus  giving  its  historic  name  to  a 
composite  realm.  If  our  Empire  refuses  to  do  the  same  I 
shall  doubt  its  reality  and  its  vitality.  There  is  in  Europe  a 
very  ominous  type.  The  subjects  of  the  Emperor  who  sits 
so  uneasily  in  Vienna  refuse  to  call  themselves  "Austrians." 


A  WORD   FOR  ENGLAND  265 

The  Dual  Monarchy  has  no  common  name.  And  publicists 
are  now  discussing  "  the  breaking-up  of  the  Austrian  Empire." 
An  empire,  to  which  its  own  subjects  cannot  agree  to  give  a 
national  name,  is  not  in  a  sound  and  abiding  state. 

Of  course  the  Imperialists  of  the  Forward  school  desire  to 
sink  "England"  in  "Empire."  But  what  is  the  national 
name  of  this  Empire  to  be?  Why  British  any  more  than 
Pictish  or  Jutish?  It  is  a  thing  like  Napoleon's  Empire  or 
that  of  Philip  II.,  an  accident,  a  passing  anomaly.  How  does 
one  feel  a  common  patriotism  with  Klondike  and  Mashona- 
land  ?  England  has  had  a  thousand  years  of  organic  life  and 
glorious  record.  The  Empire  of  Pathans,  Klondikes,  Ma- 
shonalands,  and  Ugandas  is  a  thing  of  yesterday.  Who  can 
say  where  it  will  be  to-morrow?  I  want  something  more 
definite,  more  organic,  more  permanent  to  satisfy  my  ideas 
of  a  Fatherland.  I  have  that  in  England,  in  my  birthright 
as  Englishman.  I  will  let  no  Scot,  no  Australian,  no  Rhode- 
sian,  swagger  me  out  of  that  name.  Who  says  "Little  Eng- 
land"? I  say  Great  England.  It  is  great  enough  for  me, 
and  for  all  true  Englishmen. 


ON   A   SCOTCH    REPLY 

1898 

ON  returning  from  Italy  I  have  been  amused  to  learn  that 
a  sect  of  Scotch  patriots  have  taken  seriously  to  heart  a  little 
plea  for  England  which  I  shot  off  homewards  one  day  when 
I  felt  unusually  exhilarated  by  the  glow  of  the  Southern  Sun. 
I  was  indulging  in  a  gentle  jest  at  some  of  my  Sassenach 
friends ;  but  the  last  thing  I  expected  was  to  be  charged  with 
want  of  sympathy  for  Scottish  nationality.  It  has  always 
filled  me  with  the  liveliest  interest  and  affection.  I  am  my- 
self Scottis  ipsis  Scottior.  Ever  since,  as  a  schoolboy  fifty 
years  ago,  I  spent  some  months  in  the  Highlands  and  every 
part  of  Scotland,  I  have  felt  the  most  hearty  enthusiasm  for 
Scottish  history,  poetry,  nature,  and  traditions ;  I  know  every 
corner  of  Scotland,  I  have  dear  Scottish  friends,  and  have 
entire  faith  in  the  indestructibility  of  Scottish  nationality. 
If  blood  had  anything  to  do  with  sentiments,  it  so  happens 
that  I  am  anything  but  a  mere  "Saxon  churl."  On  the 
father's  side  I  descend  from  Angles  of  the  Midlands;  by 
women  I  happen  to  have  Welsh,  Irish,  and  Scotch  blood  in 
my  veins.  I  am  a  nationalist  pur  sang.  And  the  Positimst 
Review  in  which  I  wrote  is  in  a  special  sense  the  advocate  of 
true  nationalist  patriotism ;  and  its  Editor,  Professor  Beesly, 
like  myself,  is  continually  insisting  that  Patriotism  is  one  of 
the  first  of  public  virtues,  and  that  real  patriotism  must  be 
national,  local,  and  historic.  My  "  Word  for  England  "  was  a 
protest  against  swamping  our  ancient  fatherland  in  a  congeries 

266 


ON    A    SCOTCH   REPLY  267 

of  boundless  tracts  without  any  national  cohesion.  And  one 
might  as  well  call  Mr.  Chamberlain  a  "Little  Englander" 
as  think  me  to  be  afflicted  with  any  English  arrogance. 

I  fear  that  it  was  imprudent  on  my  part  to  drop  a  little 
friendly  banter  into  a  discussion  which  arouses  such  heat, 
but  of  course  there  is  a  very  serious  and  complicated  question 
underlying  the  point  which  I  raised,  perhaps  in  too  light  a 
heart.  The  constant  use  of  the  name  "Britain,"  I  said,  is 
ending  in  robbing  us  of  the  name  of  "England."  But,  quite 
apart  from  that,  "Britain,"  as  now  used,  is  both  inaccurate 
and  inadequate.  It  is  inaccurate  because  it  displaces  the 
legal,  official,  and  constitutional  title  of  these  realms.  And 
it  is  inadequate  because  it  ignores  —  and  not  seldom  purposely 
ignores  —  the  other  constituent  nations  and  peoples  of  the 
Queen's  dominions.  I  am  the  last  man  living  to  wish  to 
force  on  these  nations  and  peoples  the  style  of  "Englishman" 
and  "England,"  if  they  object  to  it.  But  in  like  manner  I 
protest  against  forcing  on  them  the  style  of  "Briton"  and 
"Britain."  I  should  have  thought  that  my  "Word  for  Eng- 
land" would  entirely  appeal  to  such  hearty  Scots  as  the 
Reverend  David  Macrae  and  his  friends.  We  both  plead 
that  England  should  be  English  and  Scotland  should  be 
Scottish.  I  have  the  warmest  sympathy  with  these  excellent 
patriots  in  their  gallant  efforts  to  keep  alive  the  sentiment  of 
Scottish  nationality,  Scottish  individuality,  and  Scottish  senti- 
ment. Our  cause  is  the  same.  But  when  they  seek  to  sink 
both  Scotland  and  England  in  "Britain,"  when  they  wish  to 
swamp  this  island  in  traditions  of  mere  savages,  when  they 
clamour  to  impose  this  barbarous  style  on  the  English- 
speaking  subjects  of  our  Queen  all  over  the  globe  —  then  I 
say  that  national  patriotism  is  carrying  them  too  far  —  into 
what  is  both  offensive  and  absurd. 

I  have  seen  the  use  of  "Britain"  defended  by  arguments 


268  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

which  are  false  in  history,  bad  in  law,  wrong  in  philosophy, 
and  ridiculous  in  common-sense.  It  is  said  that  by  Treaty 
and  Act  of  Parliament  this  Realm  is  properly  described  as 
"Great  Britain."  That  is  untrue.  It  was  true  from  A.D. 
1707  until  1801.  Since  1801,  the  proper  title  of  this  Realm 
is  the  "United  Kingdom  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland." 
That  is  by  Article  i  of  the  Act  of  Union,  39  and  40,  Geo.  III. 
c.  67.  For  ninety-eight  years  this  latter  style  has  been  the 
legal  title  of  Her  Majesty's  dominion.  The  style  "Great 
Britain"  had  a  shorter  currency,  and  it  was  legally  sur- 
rendered by  the  Scottish  representatives  in  the  two  Houses 
at  the  Union  with  Ireland.  Having  by  the  Act  of  Union 
with  Ireland  in  1801  surrendered  the  title  assumed  in  the  Act 
of  Union  with  Scotland  in  1707,  the  Scottish  people  have  no 
claim  whatever  to  impose  the  obsolete  style  on  England  and 
on  Ireland.  Those  who  appeal  to  international  Treaties 
and  Acts  of  Parliament  are  flagrantly  defying  the  last  Treaty 
and  Act  which  is  still  in  full  vigour.  The  people  of  Wessex 
or  Strathclyde  might  as  well  appeal  to  their  ancient  history, 
and  ask  us  to  tear  up  the  latest  great  Constitutional  settle- 
ment. 

It  is  said  that  "Great  Britain"  includes  Ireland.  That  is 
untrue.  Every  single  article  of  the  Act  of  Union  with  Ire- 
land (1800)  speaks  of  the  "United  Kingdom  of  Great  Britain 
and  Ireland,"  of  the  "Parliament  of  the  United  Kingdom," 
of  his  "Majesty's  subjects  in  Ireland"  and  his  "Majesty's 
subjects  in  Great  Britain."  In  no  single  article  does  this 
Act  use  the  term  "Great  Britain"  to  include  Ireland.  And 
the  Act  of  Union  with  Scotland,  1706,  in  no  single  article 
uses  "Great  Britain"  to  include  Ireland.  The  Act  9  Anne, 
c.  6,  speaks  of  "exports  from  Great  Britain  into  Ireland." 
The  official  title  of  the  Sovereign  after  the  union  with  Scot- 
land was  "Queen  (or  King)  of  Great  Britain,  France,  and 


ON  A  SCOTCH  REPLY  269 

Ireland."  Ever  since  the  union  with  Ireland  in  1801,  it  has 
been  "King  (or  Queen)  of  the  United  Kingdom  of  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland."  It  may  be  said  that  this  is  official, 
legal,  constitutional  language.  But  the  plea  for  "Great 
Britain"  is  itself  official,  legal,  and  constitutional,  or  rather 
it  pretends  to  be.  If  we  turn  to  scientific  nomenclature  we 
may  read  in  Dr.  Murray's  New  Dictionary  that  "Britain" 
is  the  proper  name  for  "the  whole  island  containing  England, 
Wales,  and  Scotland  with  their  dependencies."  Neither  in 
law  nor  in  correct  language  does  "Great  Britain"  include 
Ireland.  And  my  point  is  that  it  is  too  often  used  to  exclude 
Ireland. 

We  have  been  told  that  the  ancients  included  Ireland  in 
"Britain."  That  is  untrue.  The  Greeks  and  the  Romans 
called  Ireland  lerne  and  Hibernia ;  and  the  whole  current  of 
ancient  geography  limited  "Britain"  to  our  own  island  and 
often  opposed  it  to  Caledonia,  as  any  one  can  see  who  will 
turn  to  Sir  E.  Bunbury's  History  of  Ancient  Geography  or 
W.  Smith's  Dictionary  of  Geography.  But  the  true  question 
is,  not  what  style  is  used  by  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  by 
poets,  or  in  popular  talk,  but  what  is  the  legal,  official,  and 
Parliamentary  title  of  our  country.  Most  certainly  it  is  not 
"Britain"  nor  "Great  Britain,"  for  which  there  is  no  basis 
except  in  loose  habits  of  speech.  To  appeal  to  Treaties  and 
to  Acts  of  Parliament  is  absurd,  for  they  tell  the  other  way. 
By  what  Treaty,  by  what  Act,  by  what  international  or 
public  agreement,  did  Englishmen,  Welshmen,  Scots,  and 
Irishmen  ever  agree  that  the  formal  style  of  their  country 
should  be  "Britain,"  or  agree  to  call  themselves  "Brit- 
ons"? Yet  the  Petitioners  talk  of  Treaties,  Acts,  and 
Rights ! 

What  is  so  laughable  is  that  this  appeal  to  formal  styles, 
rights,  and  laws  comes  from  those  who  are  habitually  violat- 


270  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

ing  all  these  at  once.  Mr.  Macrae  says  that  "the  proper  title 
of  the  United  Kingdom  is  Britain."  He  might  just  as  well 
say  that  "the  proper  title  of  Edinburgh  is  'Auld  Reekie.'" 
The  proper  title  of  the  United  Kingdom  is  stated  in  39  and 
40  Geo.  III.  c.  67,  and  it  is  not  "  Britain."  Even  before  that 
Act,  from  1707  until  1801,  it  was  not  "Britain"  —  but 
"Great  Britain,"  and  these  sticklers  for  official  titles  should 
not  clip  the  Queen's  English.  If  we  are  always  to  speak  by 
the  card  and  any  equivocation  in  national  titles  is  to  undo  us, 
we  ought  to  talk  of  the  "Great  British  Army,"  which  our 
foreign  rivals  would  find  rather  comical,  and  always  refer  to 
Mr.  Balfour  as  the  "Leader  of  the  House  of  Commons  of  the 
United  Kingdom  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland."  That  is  a 
mouthful,  but  it  is  strictly  official,  and  these  gentlemen  appeal 
to  Acts  of  Parliament.  If  it  is  to  be  a  matter  of  loose  talk, 
who  made  the  term  "British"  the  "proper  title"?  We 
Englishmen,  Welshmen,  and  Irishmen  have  never  agreed  to 
it;  and  even  Scots,  if  they  insist  on  using  it,  ought  to  say 
"Great  British,"  and  not  British.  They  can  use  any  cant 
nickname  they  like,  but  "British"  to  my  ear  is  a  silly  nick- 
name. It  suggests  painted  savages,  scythed  chariots,  and 
Queen  Boadicea. 

Happily,  the  mass  of  sensible  Scots  in  1800  consented  to 
surrender  the  term  "  Great  Britain,"  or  rather  to  merge  it  in 
a  new  title,  the  legal  and  official  authority  of  which  is  unim- 
peachable. Unluckily,  that  legal  title  is  rather  awkward 
and  cumbrous  for  ordinary  use.  It  is  no  doubt  true  that  a 
convenient  common  name  for  our  vast  Empire  is  rather  a 
want,  and  my  object  when  I  first  wrote  was  to  point  this  out. 
Whether  all  the  peoples  within  it  across  the  seas  can  agree 
to  call  it  "  English,"  as  all  our  neighbours  do  and  will  do,  I 
am  not  greatly  concerned.  But  with  the  most  lively  sym- 
pathy for  Scottish  nationality,  and  hearty  approval  of  its 


ON  A  SCOTCH  REPLY  271 

patriotic  champions,  I  cannot  consent  to  their  forcing  on  us 
Englishmen  and  on  all  the  many  millions  of  subjects  of  our 
Queen  the  term  "  British,"  which  to  niy  ear  connotes  some- 
thing barbarous,  something  tribal  and  local,  and  which  at 
times  has  an  almost  comic  suggestion. 


THE   SCOTTISH    PETITION   TO   THE 
QUEEN 


I  HAVE  been  favoured  with  sundry  copies  of  a  Petition  to 
the  Queen  from  her  Scottish  subjects,  dated  i3th  November 
last,  signed  by  David  Macrae  and  others.  I  had  not  pre- 
viously heard  of  this  document  nor  of  its  signatories ;  but  as 
I  suppose  the  first  name  to  it  is  that  of  the  reverend  gentle- 
man who  has  recently  mistaken  a  few  words  of  my  own  in 
so  curious  a  way,  I  venture  to  submit  to  him  some  remarks 
thereon.  I  need  not  repeat  that  with  the  wish  of  patriotic 
Scotsmen  to  cherish  their  ancient  nationality,  to  be  extremely 
jealous  that  the  historic  name  and  individuality  of  Scotland 
should  not  be  merged  and  smothered  in  any  other  nationality 
and  name,  I  am  in  most  hearty  sympathy.  And  my  simple 
"Word  for  England"  was  put  forth  in  a  kindred  sense;  and, 
without  wishing  to  impose  the  name  of  England  on  others,  I 
asked  merely  that  it  should  not  be  merged  and  smothered  by 
Englishmen  at  home. 

The  Petition  to  the  Queen  relates  to  a  formal  title  as  defined 
by  public  law,  and  consequently  must  be  worthless  if  it  be 
itself  inaccurate  and  loose  in  its  own  language  and  references. 
Now  English  publicists  are  amazed  to  find  how  little  this 
Petition  corresponds  with  the  legal  learning,  the  precision, 
the  common  sense  which  we  always  expect  from  public  men 
in  Scotland.  The  Petition  asserts  that  in  1707  the  official 
title  of  the  Sovereign  and  the  Realm  was  changed  by  law, 
and  was  settled  for  ever;  and  it  prays  that  this  official  title 
may  now  be  strictly  observed.  It  calmly  ignores  the  notorious 

272 


THE   SCOTTISH   PETITION  TO   THE   QUEEN  273 

fact  that  in  1801  by  the  same  law,  and  in  the  same  constitu- 
tional way,  the  official  title  of  the  Sovereign  and  the  Realm 
was  again  changed  by  law  and  was  settled  for  ever  in  a  new 
way.  Do  the  Petitioners  mean  to  tell  us  that  the  Act  of 
Union  of  1801  was  mere  waste  paper?  They  demand  the 
revival  of  an  official  title  which  was  superseded  98  years  ago, 
and  pray  for  the  abrogation  of  that  title  which  has  never  been 
challenged  during  the  present  century?  Queen  Anne  is 
dead :  and  a  good  many  things  have  happened  since  —  so 
that  the  Titles  and  Acts  of  Her  Sacred  Majesty  have  been 
somewhat  amended  and  modified. 

The  first  sentence  of  the  Petition  professes  to  cite  the  Union 
of  1707.  I  turn  to  the  Revised  Statutes  (2nd  edition,  1888) 
i.  787,  for  we  have  nothing  to  do  with  Preliminaries  and  Trea- 
ties :  the  Act  of  Union  of  1707,  as  amended  and  now  in  force, 
to  the  understanding  of  a  lawyer,  governs  the  whole,  and  so 
far  as  official  titles  extend,  is  final  and  decisive.  Now,  I  find 
that  the  first  sentence  of  the  Petition  is  a  slovenly  and  quite 
inaccurate  paraphrase  of  the  First  Article  of  the  Act  of  Union 
of  1707.  That  Act  was  amended  and  modified  so  far  as  the 
official  title  of  the  Sovereign  and  the  Realm  is  concerned  by 
the  Act  of  Union  of  1801.  I  have  both  Acts  and  the  Petition 
before  me  as  I  write.  And  I  assert  that  the  Petition  wholly 
ignores  the  later  Act  and  wholly  misquotes  the  earlier  Act. 
It  is  a  pity  that,  in  approaching  the  Throne  on  so  solemn  an 
occasion,  the  reverend  gentleman  and  his  friends  could  not 
have  secured  the  help  of  that  accurate  learning  and  scrupulous 
precision  for  which  Scottish  jurisprudence  is  justly  famous. 

The  petitioners  are  wont  to  claim  the  Act  of  Union  of  1707 
for  the  official  use  of  the  term  "Britain"  and  "British."  It 
so  happens  that  the  Act,  even  supposing  that  it  had  not  been 
superseded  on  this  head  by  the  Act  of  1801,  does  not  once 
contain  the  term  "British"  from  beginning  to  end,  nor  does 


274  MEMORIES  AND  THOUGHTS 

it  use  the  term  " Britain"  apart  from  "  Great  Britain."  " Oh, 
but,"  they  say,  "we  use  the  terms  'Britain'  and  'British' 
for  short  in  everyday  speech,  and  every  one  knows  what  we 
mean!"  Yes,  but  the  Petition  is  not  dealing  with  short 
names  or  everyday  speech,  but  with  formal  titles  as  strictly 
defined  by  constitutional  law.  That  is  just  the  slipshod  way 
in  which  the  whole  Petition  is  drawn.  It  cites  an  Act  of 
Parliament  without  noticing  another  Act  by  which  it  was 
modified  and  superseded ;  and  it  misquotes  the  language  of 
the  Act  itself,  though  the  sole  point  in  dispute  is  a  matter  of 
strict  language. 

I  come  to  a  point  on  which  I  will  try  to  be  serious,  though 
it  is  too  funny  for  words.  The  Petition  as  sent  to  me  bears 
on  the  cover  a  grand  woodcut  that  professes  to  be  a  new 
and  improved  version  of  the  Royal  Coat  of  Arms  and  so  forth. 
I  am  no  herald,  but  I  have  had,  in  pursuit  of  history,  to 
dabble  a  little  in  that  abstruse  science.  Anything  more  comic 
than  this  work  of  art  I  never  saw.  It  blazons  "over  all,  on 
an  Inescutcheon  of  Pretence,"  the  Arms  of  Hanover !  Pro- 
digious !  as  Dominie  Sampson  would  shout.  Do  the  Peti- 
tioners assert  that  Her  Majesty  is  now  Queen  of  Hanover? 
Have  they  not  heard  that,  from  June  1837,  the  Arms  of 
Hanover  were  (very  naturally)  removed  from  the  Royal 
Shield  ?  Do  they  pretend  that  our  Sovereign  is  to  this  day  a 
feudatory  of  the  German  Emperor,  or  a  Pretender  to  the 
Crown  of  Hanover?  What  do  they  mean?  Do  they  know 
the  elementary  rule  of  Heraldry  that  all  minor  titles  are 
merged  in  Royalty,  and  that  no  subordinate  arms  can  be 
quartered  or  mingled  with  Arms  of  Dominion?  And  these 
sticklers  for  Heraldic  titles  perpetrate  a  blunder  which  makes 
the  very  Unicorn  turn  round  and  grin  "like  a  Cheshire  cat"  ! 

I  come  to  the  chief  point  of  the  whole  Coat  as  amended, 
on  which  I  confess  that  I  tread  as  if  incedens  per  ignes  sup- 


THE   SCOTTISH  PETITION  TO   THE   QUEEN  275 

positos  —  I  mean  the  grand  coat  of  Scotland  —  or,  the  lion 
rampant  gules,  within  a  double  treasure  flory  counter-fiery  of 
the  last.  I  have  such  genuine  admiration  for  this  beautiful 
creation  of  the  herald's  art,  and  such  a  fascination  for  its 
historic  traditions,  that  I  would  not  seem  to  smile  at  that 
noble  beast,  caged  as  he  is  in  a  double  tressure  flory  counter- 
flory.  But  what  on  earth  do  the  Petitioners  mean  by  doubling 
this  royal  carnivore,  by  setting  him  in  the  first  and  fourth 
quarters,  and  by  kicking  the  poor,  half-starved  lions  of  Eng- 
land into  a  back  seat  in  the  second  quarter?  No  doubt  it  is 
meant  to  assert  that  Scotland  is  the  "predominant  partner" 
in  the  United  Kingdom  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland.  I  shall 
not  attempt  to  dispute  it.  But  heraldry  in  the  art  of  quarter- 
ing has  to  deal  with  legal  inheritances  and  not  with  the  wealth, 
acreage,  or  achievements  of  families.  What  then  is  meant 
by  the  claim  of  the  double  Lion  rampant  gules  J  And  what 
is  meant  by  setting  the  Scottish  Unicorn  as  dexter  supporter 
and  banishing  to  the  sinister  side  the  English  lion,  who  looks 
grumpy  enough?  One  can  only  suppose,  from  the  herald's 
point  of  view,  that  it  means  that  the  Sovereign  represents 
primarily  and  directly  a  Scottish  family,  and  tacks  on  the 
coats  of  her  English  and  Irish  inheritances  as  subordinate 
quarterings. 

Was  there  ever  such  childish  nonsense  in  a  schoolboy's 
caricature?  Does  it  mean  that  Her  Majesty  represents  the 
House  of  Stuart  and  not  the  House  of  Hanover?  Let  the 
Reverend  David  Macrae  take  care.  He  is  dabbling  in  trea- 
son. Does  he  mean  to  lead  the  Clan  Macrae  again  to  Derby  ? 
Does  he  mean  to  chuck  over  the  Act  of  Settlement  as  well  as 
the  Act  of  Union  with  Ireland?  Is  this  Petition  another 
phase  of  that  tomfoolery  about  the  rightful  heir  to  the  throne 
being  a  foreign  Prince  who  claims  Stuart  descent?  The 
throne  of  these  realms  is  settled  upon  the  descendants  of  the 


276  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

Electress  Sophia.  The  Electress  Sophia  was  the  daughter  of 
the  King  of  Bohemia,  and  the  wife  of  the  Elector  of  Hanover. 
She  was  not  a  Stuart,  except  in  blood,  as  were  scores  of  men 
and  women.  In  law,  in  heraldry,  and  in  common  sense,  a 
woman  who  marries,  and  certainly  one  who  marries  a  foreign 
prince,  cannot  represent  the  family  from  which  she  descends, 
but  only  the  family  into  which  she  marries.  The  Electress 
Sophia  was  not,  legally  and  heraldically,  a  Stuart,  either  by 
birth  or  by  marriage.  The  Crown  has  been  settled  on  her 
descendants,  and  consequently  is  not  settled  on  a  Stuart. 

Supposing  that  she  had  been  a  Stuart  by  birth,  would  that 
make  Queen  Victoria  a  Stuart,  or  chief  of  the  House  of  Stuart  ? 
How  came  James  Stuart  to  have  any  claim  to  the  throne  of 
England?  Well,  because  his  great-grandmother  was  a 
Tudor  —  daughter  of  Henry  VII.,  and  descended  from 
Plantagenets,  Kings  of  England.  The  throne  of  these  islands 
has  descended  since  the  Conquest  to  one  House  after  another 
through  married  women,  who  on  entering  a  new  House  have 
entered  a  new  family  and  borne  a  new  name.  The  same 
devolution  which  took  the  royal  title  to  the  Scottish  Stuarts, 
took  it  from  them  to  the  Hanoverian  House  (vulgarly  called 
Guelph)  —  just  as  the  Scottish  Stuarts  took  it  through  women 
from  Welsh  Tudors,  and  they  from  English  Plantagenets,  and 
they  from  Normans  and  Angevins.  There  is  therefore  not 
the  smallest  reason  to  pretend  that  Her  Majesty  represents 
Stuarts  or  any  Scottish  family  more  than  she  represents 
Welsh  Tudors,  or  English  Plantagenets,  Normans  and 
Angevins.  By  descent  she  traces  her  family  through  them 
all ;  but  by  law  and  the  constitution  she  represents  the  House 
of  Hanover.  And  if  Mr.  Macrae  attempts  to  dispute  it,  he 
may  end  yet,  like  some  of  his  Highland  cousins,  on  Tower 
Hill. 

They  died  for  Scotland,  true  to  the  memories  of  that  ancient 


THE    SCOTTISH   PETITION  TO   THE  QUEEN         277 

kingdom.  He  will  die  for  "Britain,"  and  with  his  last  gasp 
will  forswear  the  land  of  his  fathers,  and  claim  allegiance  to 
a  lot  of  painted  savages.  We  are  the  true  patriots.  We 
stand  up  for  England  and  its  ancient  name  and  glorious 
memories.  I  am  sorry  to  learn  that  Scotsmen  can  be  found 
who  wish  to  sink  Scotland  and  its  grand  traditions  in  a  style 
which  is  too  often  used  in  the  way  of  swagger  or  the  way  of 
mockery. 


IDEAL   LONDON 

ADDRESS  GIVEN  AT  LONDON  UNIVERSITY,  i 

Now  that  you  have  heard  so  much  of  London  in  the  past 
and  in  the  present,  of  London  a  thousand  years  ago,  and  of 
London  and  its  new  County  Council,  of  the  art,  the  science, 
the  poetry,  the  schools,  the  churches  of  London,  I  am  bidden 
to  speak  to  you  of  "  Ideal  London,"  which  I  understand  is  — 
London  as  it  might  be,  as  it  should  be,  as  it  shall  be. 

Neither  the  subject  nor  the  title  of  this  lecture  is  of  my 
choosing,  but  I  willingly  accept  the  task.  And  I  can  imagine 
that  some  of  you  may  be  saying  —  Ideal  London  is  an  im- 
possible London;  an  unpractical,  unreal,  visionary  thing; 
of  no  use  to  man  or  woman ;  an  idle  day-dream,  which  need 
not  be  intruded  on  serious  students  and  laborious  research. 
Do  not  be  too  sure  of  that.  An  ideal  is  a  standard  at  which 
we  aim,  the  hope  of  things  not  seen,  that  which  we  yearn  to 
make  ourselves  and  our  lives,  for  the  things  we  see  are  tem- 
poral (saith  the  Apostle),  the  things  not  seen  are  eternal. 
Without  ideals  we  grow  into  fossils,  drones,  brutes.  What  is 
the  good  of  study,  what  is  the  need  of  research,  unless  it  be 
to  know,  in  order  to  improve,  to  leave  the  world  better  than 
we  found  it,  to  attain  to  a  true  and  well-grounded  progress? 
And  can  there  be  progress  unless  we  see  clearly  some  goal  at 
which  we  ought  to  arrive,  however  slow  be  our  course,  how- 
ever laborious  the  study  with  which  we  prepare  it  and  fore- 
cast it.  As  the  poet  says: 

We  live  by  admiration,  hope,  and  love. 

Morality,  religion  are  based  on  ideals.     Without  ideals  there 
would  be  no  hope,  and  without  hope,  neither  religion,  nor 

278 


IDEAL  LONDON  279 

aspiration,  nor  energy,  nor  good  work.  A  true  ideal  is  no 
dream,  no  idle  fantasy.  It  is  the  justification  of  study,  and 
the  motive  of  all  useful  endeavour. 

If  I  am  asked  to  speak  of  London  as  it  might  be,  my  only 
claim  to  occupy  your  attention  may  be  that  London  is  my 
birthplace,  and  for  nearly  sixty  years  has  been  my  home ;  that 
I  have  watched  the  growth  and  rebuilding  of  London  for  two 
generations,  whilst  it  has  increased  its  area  four  or  five  times 
and  its  population  two  or  three  times.  I  have  seen  the  rise 
of  the  Houses  of  Parliament,  the  Royal  Exchange,  the 
National  Gallery,  the  British  Museum,  the  whole  of  the  new 
towns  at  Paddington,  Kensington,  Chelsea,  and  Maida  and 
Notting  Hills,  the  covering  with  houses  of  the  vast  area  west 
of  Belgrave  Square  and  the  Edgware  Road  and  the  area  north 
of  the  Euston  Road.  I  have  seen  begun  the  embankment  of 
the  Thames  and  the  whole  of  the  railway  system  out  of 
London.  My  memory  of  London  goes  back  to  the  time  of 
the  first  epoch  of  policemen,  omnibuses,  and  cabs,  to  a  time 
when  Tyburnia,  Chelsea,  and  South  Kensington  were  market- 
gardens,  when  there  was  not  a  single  railroad  out  of  London, 
no  penny  post  or  telegraph,  when  no  man  or  woman  in  work- 
ing clothes  was  admitted  into  Kensington  Gardens,  and  when 
the  people  were  still  buried  in  city  churches  and  in  urban 
'  graveyards.  May  I  add  that  for  some  years  I  worked  hard 
in  the  service  of  the  government  of  London,  as  a  member  of 
the  first  and  second  County  Councils,  an  experience  which 
brought  home  to  me  the  incessant  needs  of  London  reorganisa- 
tion and  the  enormous  difficulties  which  in  practice  it  has  to 
overcome?  I  come  before  you,  therefore,  as  a  rather  "old 
London  hand,"  who  knows  something  of  the  greatest  city  on 
this  earth,  who  longs  to  see  it  live  up  to  its  marvellous  history, 
and  one,  too,  who  knows  something  of  the  practical  difficulties 
that  beset  its  reform. 


280  MEMORIES  AND  THOUGHTS 

Now,  in  speaking  to  you  of  Ideal  London,  or  rather  of 
London  as  it  might  be  made,  I  shall  keep  within  the  limits 
of  practical  statesmanship  and  possible  reform.  I  put  aside 
any  fancy  picture  of  an  unsubstantial  city  in  the  air  —  what 
the  Greek  dramatist  called  a  Cloud-cuckoo-land.  I  know 
something  of  the  difficulties  which  await  the  Municipal  Re- 
former—  difficulties  of  the  legislature,  of  finance,  of  vested 
interests,  of  law,  of  opinion,  of  habit,  and  indifference.  I 
know  these  obstacles,  and  I  shall  not  pretend  to  ignore  them. 
But  I  am  not  bound  by  limits  of  tune,  or  by  the  legislation 
of  this  or  that  Parliament,  the  prejudices  of  the  present 
generation,  or  the  tone  and  customs  of  to-day,  no,  nor  of  to- 
morrow. London  is  far  older  than  the  Empire,  or  the  mon- 
archy, or  the  constitution,  or  the  Church,  or  our  actual  stage 
of  civilisation  in  any  form  —  and  I  think  it  will  outlive  them 
all.  And  Ideal  London  is  not  to  be  "cribb'd,  cabin'd,  and 
confin'd"  within  this  or  that  generation,  this  or  that  habit  of 
life,  this  or  that  social  organisation.  It  should  be  a  city  that 
develops  all  that  ever  was  good  in  city  life,  and  all  that  we  can 
imagine  to  belong  to  pure  and  perfect  citizenship. 

It  is  the  weak  side  of  modern  civilisation  that  it  has  failed 
to  carry  on  some  of  the  fine  elements  of  city  life  as  known  to 
the  ancient  and  mediaeval  world ;  and,  of  all  Europeans,  we 
English  of  to-day  take  the  least  pride  in  our  cities,  and  receive 
from  them  the  least  of  inspiration  and  culture.  The  historic 
cities  of  the  world  —  Jerusalem,  Athens,  Rome,  Byzantium 
—  sum  up  entire  epochs  of  civilisation  in  themselves.  To  the 
ancients,  the  very  idea  of  a  nation,  with  a  national  system  of 
life,  implied  a  mother-city  as  its  home  and  type.  And  in  the 
modern  world  the  citizens  of  Florence,  Venice,  Paris,  Seville, 
Bern,  Nuremberg,  Cologne,  and  Ghent  have  all  had  far 
deeper  sympathy  with  their  native  cities  than  the  Londoner 
has  with  his  city,  at  least  within  the  last  two  or  three  cen- 


IDEAL  LONDON  281 

tunes  of  its  life.  This  is  a  definite  loss  to  London  and  to 
England.  For  if  we  truly  estimate  the  indispensable  need 
to  a  nation  of  a  great  capital  worthy  of  itself,  as  a  seat  of  its 
highest  culture,  energy,  organisation,  and  capacity  for  the 
multiform  sides  of  civic  organism,  we  shall  see  that  England 
and  the  British  race  are  all  the  poorer  in  that  it  still  fails  to 
inspire  the  Englishman  with  that  sense  of  sympathy,  pride, 
and  example  which  Rome  gave  to  the  Roman  world  and 
which  Paris  gives  to  the  French  and  the  whole  Latin  race. 

To  the  poor  countryman  London  is  too  often  a  place  where 
he  may  get  bare  life,  variety,  and  cheap  amusement.  To  the 
rich  countryman  it  is  a  place  where  he  goes  to  buy  all  things 
that  money  can  furnish;  where  Vanity  Fair  lasts  for  some 
three  months;  and  from  which  he  rushes  off  when  his  pur- 
chases are  made,  and  when  the  Fair  is  over.  To  the  dull 
provincial  it  is  a  place  where  he  hopes  to  pick  up  "the  last 
thing  out"  —  in  the  peculiar  vernacular  he  affects.  To  the 
ambitious  man  of  business  and  the  aspiring  professional  it  is 
a  place  where  toil  and  energy  and  skill  may  enable  him  to 
make  a  fortune,  and  in  old  age  to  retire  to  a  rural  retreat  with 
an  adequate  "pile."  And  the  city  suffers,  both  within  and 
without,  from  these  unworthy  aims ;  and  it  has  the  aspect  of 
a  place  which  is  valued  mainly  as  a  market,  an  exchange,  a 
warehouse,  an  office,  and  a  playground.  It  was  not  thus  that 
Athens,  Rome,  Florence,  and  Venice  were  looked  on  by  their 
citizens  —  nor  was  London  so  looked  on  in  the  age  of  Norman 
and  Plantagenet,  of  Tudors  and  Stuarts. 

Now  "Ideal  London,"  to  which  I  personally  conduct  you, 
covers  in  buildings  barely  one-third  of  the  London  we  know 
—  a  city  which  measures  on  an  average  some  ten  miles  across, 
and  covers  120  square  miles  of  houses,  with  streets  which 
end  on  end  would  reach  straight  across  Europe,  from  the 
centre  of  which  you  must  walk  for  many  hours  before  you 


282  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

can  see  a  green  field  —  this  is  not  a  city,  but  a  wilderness  of 
houses.  It  is  an  old  saying  that  "one  cannot  see  the  forest 
for  the  trees."  So  we  may  say,  "in  London  we  cannot  see 
the  city  for  the  houses."  City  life  is  impossible  for  a  crowd 
of  four  or  five  millions  of  people,  and  with  a  hundred  square 
miles  of  buildings.  The  city  of  Edward  I.'s  time,  the  legal 
"city,"  still  occupied  about  one  square  mile;  and  twenty  or 
thirty  such  cities  is  surely  the  utmost  possible  area  for  con- 
tinuous buildings  to  cover  if  true  life  is  to  be  lived  within 
them.  No  inventions  in  locomotion,  trams,  railways,  or 
bicycles,  can  do  away  with  legs  and  feet  for  ordinary  use. 
And,  until  science  has  invented  wings  to  fly  with,  or  seven- 
leagued  boots  to  jump  with,  men,  women,  and  children  will 
have  to  walk  on  their  ten  toes.  And,  unless  their  ten  toes 
can  carry  them  in  an  hour  out  into  the  open,  where  they  may 
hear  the  lark,  and  smell  the  hay,  and  feel  the  open  sky  above 
them  —  the  town  is  no  city :  it  is  a  prison. 

So  I  hold  that  the  London  that  is  to  be  will  not  exceed  two 
millions  of  inhabitants,  and  would  be  a  happier  city  if  it  did 
not  exceed  one  million,  and  if  its  area  was  less  than  one-third 
of  what  it  is  to-day.  You  may  ask  me,  what  arbitrary  limits 
are  there  to  put  bounds  to  a  city?  I  reply,  the  arbitrary 
limits  are  those  which  Creation  has  imposed  on  ordinary 
men  and  women  who  cannot  comfortably  walk  more  than 
three  miles  in  an  hour,  not  more  than  three  hours  at  a  stretch, 
and  children,  old  and  delicate  persons,  not  half  of  that. 
Whilst  our  size  is  limited  to  some  five  or  six  feet,  and  our 
powers  of  physical  exertion  to  a  few  hours  out  of  the  twenty- 
four,  any  ideal  city  life  for  men  must  be  limited  by  the  physical 
conditions  of  human  nature ;  and  if  men  are  to  live  in  cities 
with  the  highest  conditions  of  civic  life,  those  cities  must  be 
controlled  by  limits  of  numbers  and  area. 

You  may  ask  me  by  what  means  can  so  vast  a  change  be 


IDEAL  LONDON  283 

effected.  And  I  answer  that  this  involves  a  big  set  of  practi- 
cal problems  which  neither  time  nor  my  own  powers  enable 
me  to  deal  with.  I  am  not  here  to  enter  on  a  series  of  political 
and  economic  problems,  nor  have  I  a  patented  body  of  de- 
vices, bills,  and  projects  to  effect  such  change.  As  I  said  at 
the  outset,  an  "Ideal"  is  not  bound  by  time,  nor  by  the 
legislation,  prejudices,  habits  of  to-day.  It  is  bound  only 
by  the  possibilities  of  human  nature  and  the  wide  laws  of 
English  civilisation.  All  I  maintain  is,  that  this  change  is 
possible,  practicable,  within  the  conditions  of  modern  civilised 
habits.  The  population  of  London  at  the  opening  of  this 
century  was  under  one  million.  At  my  birth  it  did  not 
exceed  a  million  and  a  half.  At  that  date  its  area  was  barely 
one  quarter  of  what  it  is  to-day.  Why  need  I  think  these 
limits  are  impossible  in  the  future?  Such  cities  as  Rome, 
Athens,  Milan,  Marseilles,  Lyons,  Paris,  and  London  have 
lived  through  enormous  changes  in  their  population  and 
their  area  —  in  some  cases  exceeding  changes  of  increase  by 
tenfold  and  of  decrease  to  one-tenth.  Why  need  we  regard 
as  hopeless  in  an  unknown  future  a  state  of  things  which 
existed  in  London  at  my  own  lifetime? 

Those  who  have  studied  the  topography  and  history  of 
such  cities  as  Paris,  London,  Rome,  Constantinople,  Chicago, 
Vienna,  Alexandria,  and  Cairo  —  those  who  can  remember, 
as  I  can,  the  London,  the  Paris,  the  Rome,  the  Florence,  of 
some  forty  or  even  fifty  years  ago  —  can  hardly  see  what 
bounds  need  be  placed  on  the  physical  transformation  of 
great  cities  under  adequate  efforts.  We  have  witnessed  the 
densest  hives  of  the  mediaeval  cities  of  London,  Paris,  Rome, 
and  Florence  swept  away  to  make  magnificent  avenues  or 
vast  open  sites,  or  huge  palaces,  or  public  structures.  We 
have  seen  in  London  and  elsewhere  overcrowded  centres 
rapidly  depleted,  and  straggling  quarters  of  small  houses 


284  MEMORIES  AND  THOUGHTS 

replaced  by  vast  blocks  of  aggregate  tenements.  This  radical 
series  of  changes  —  the  emptying  of  the  old  effete  cores  of 
our  cities  and  the  gathering  of  the  population  into  immense 
blocks  of  tenements  —  is  going  on  at  a  great  pace,  and  is 
already  beginning  to  transform  London.  I  am  no  lover  of 
the  "flat"  system  in  itself;  I  am  a  warm  lover  of  the  old 
private  house  system  as  the  normal  home  of  a  family.  But 
I  see  this  —  that  if  millions  of  persons  insist  on  living  to- 
gether in  a  city,  and  if  they  are  to  live  there  in  a  high  state 
of  civilised  life,  some  form  of  the  tenement  system  must  be 
adopted.  It  is  universal  in  all  great  European  and  American 
cities,  and  it  is  unavoidable  in  all  great  cities  unless  they  are 
to  grow  to  unmanageable  bulk.  It  is  being  done  here  rapidly. 
I  am  far  from  saying  that  our  actual  tenements  are  what  they 
should  be  —  London,  indeed,  has  no  " ideal"  tenements.  I 
do  not  like  tenements;  I  regret  the  necessity.  But  if  per- 
sons will  live  in  a  city  of  some  millions  and  desire  to  live  a 
civilised  life,  to  the  tenement  system  they  must  come.  Those 
who  cannot  endure  a  tenement  life  must  be  content  with  the 
country,  and  with  smaller  towns.  As  it  is,  nine-tenths  of 
the  dwellers  in  London  do  to-day  live  in  tenements  —  only 
the  lodgings  they  have  are  in  small,  rotten,  ill-kept,  unwhole- 
some, old  houses.  On  an  average  there  are  ten  persons  to  a 
house,  whilst  there  might  well  be  fifty  or  a  hundred.  Ideal 
London  will  give  the  mass  of  its  citizens  spacious,  airy,  lofty, 
clean,  and  healthy  blocks,  provided  with  common  baths, 
kitchens,  lifts,  libraries,  play-rooms,  sick-rooms,  and  even 
mortuaries.  All  that  the  few  now  provide  for  themselves  in 
their  private  mansions  will  be  available  for  the  many  by  the 
aid  of  wise  co-operation. 

London  properly  housed  on  a  scientific  system  of  tenements 
would  occupy  one-third  or  one-quarter  of  the  area  now  loosely 
covered  with  small  houses.  And  this  would  give  an  enor- 


IDEAL  LONDON  285 

mous  area  of  new  room  for  gardens,  parks,  boulevards,  and 
playgrounds,  even  if  the  population  continued  to  exceed  four 
millions  of  souls.  But  the  causes  which  within  this  century 
have  raised  the  population  from  one  to  four  or  five  millions, 
and  the  area  of  buildings  from  5  square  miles  to  120  square 
miles,  are  really  temporary  and  incidental.  Political,  eco- 
nomic, and  international  changes  will  react  in  another  way 
within  measurable  time ;  and  if  this  fabulous  and  unnatural 
growth  has  taken  place  in  a  single  century,  it  will  need  but  a 
few  centuries  to  undo  it.  I  wholly  repudiate  the  dismal  fore- 
cast that  London  is  to  go  on  increasing  in  size  and  numbers 
at  the  rate  of  the  last  fifty  years ;  I  will  not  believe  Mother 
Shipton's  prophecy  that  Hampstead  Heath  is  to  be  the  centre 
of  London,  or  that  its  population  at  the  end  of  the  next  cen- 
tury is  to  be  ten  millions  of  souls.  But  if  its  population  is  to 
be  even  two  or  three  millions,  and  these  are  to  live  a  human 
life,  the  present  parks,  avenues,  and  open  places  ought  at 
least  to  be  doubled  or  trebled.  With  a  park,  a  playground, 
and  a  great  open  ground  within  one  mile  at  most  of  every 
citizen's  home,  civic  life  of  a  high  order  is  possible.  Without 
these  things  it  is  impossible. 

We  have  done  much  in  the  way  of  parks  within  twenty 
years;  but  it  is  only  a  corner  of  what  we  have  to  do.  In 
the  four  or  five  miles  of  dreary  streets  which  separate  Regent's 
Park  from  Victoria  Park,  and  in  those  four  or  five  miles  of 
blackened  streets  which  separate  Battersea  Park  from  Rother- 
hithe,  there  is  a  cruel  want  of  fresh  air,  trees,  greenery,  and 
free  space.  One  of  the  greatest  of  all  wants  is  good  play- 
grounds, I  mean  such  turf  and  space  as  are  to  be  seen  at 
Lord's  and  at  the  Oval.  A  city  is  not  habitable  by  highly 
civilised  men  unless  it  can  offer  adequate  playgrounds  to  men, 
children,  and  young  women  within  an  easy  walk  of  their  own 
homes.  The  last  few  years  have  witnessed  a  great  move  in 


286  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

that  direction,  and  what  has  already  been  done  in  Battersea, 
Regent's,  and  Victoria  parks,  as  well  as  the  more  outlying 
greens,  is  enough  to  show  what  we  can  do.  But  we  do  not 
half  use  our  actual  opportunities.  No  man  values  more  than 
I  do  the  peace  and  freedom  of  Kensington  Gardens,  few  men 
resort  to  it  more.  But  I  still  demand  that  in  all  the  Royal 
parks  and  all  possible  public  spaces  there  should  be  regularly 
opened  playgrounds,  with  proper  regulations  and  conditions 
—  to  keep  the  youth  of  our  citizens  in  health  —  until  such 
time  at  least  as  it  shall  be  possible  to  provide  even  better 
playgrounds  within  a  mile  or  two  of  every  man's  doorstep. 
A  city  fails  to  fulfil  its  functions  completely  unless  it  has  as 
much  fresh  air  as  Edinburgh,  and  playgrounds,  walks,  and 
gardens  as  plentiful  and  close  at  hand  as  Oxford  or  Cam- 
bridge. 

In  those  good  days  the  Thames  will  again  run  as  clear  and 
fresh  as  it  does  now  at  Henley,  and  it  will  be,  as  of  old,  the 
great  highway  of  passage  from  east  to  west.  The  bridges 
over  it  and  the  tunnels  under  it  will  be  just  double  of  what 
they  are  now,  and  the  railway  viaducts  and  termini  which 
disfigure  it  will  be  suitably  treated.  The  embankment,  finely 
wooded,  will  be  carried  along  both  sides  of  the  river  for  the 
whole  length  of  the  city;  and  where  it  is  necessary  to  have 
wharves  for  unloading,  these  will  be  carried  into  docks,  whilst 
leaving  the  embankment  clear  for  traffic,  and  our  noble  river 
at  London  will  be  as  much  in  use  for  healthy  exercises  by 
men  and  women  as  the  Thames  is  to-day  at  Richmond  and 
Maidenhead.  No  doubt  we  shall  be  carried  up  and  down 
the  river  in  electric  launches  —  not  in  smoky,  noisome,  puffing, 
and  snorting  steamboats.  Steam  engines  of  all  kinds  will  be 
excluded  from  the  City  —  power  being  obtained  from  electric 
and  other  non-infecting  sources.  I  need  hardly  say  that  in 
the  good  time  to  come  no  smoke  will  pollute  the  air  and  ruin 


IDEAL   LONDON  287 

the  vegetation  of  London.  That  some  millions  of  house 
chimneys  and  ten  thousand  factory  chimneys  should  be 
suffered  to  pour  out  into  the  pure  air  of  heaven  their  poison- 
ous fumes,  so  that  we  are  all  to  be  choked  with  soot,  our 
flowers  and  shrubs  stunted,  our  public  buildings,  statues,  and 
carvings  begrimed  with  a  sulphurous  deposit  —  this  to  our 
descendants  will  seem  an  abomination  and  a  public  crime, 
to  be  sternly  suppressed  by  law  and  opinion.  They  will 
hardly  believe  what  they  read  in  history  that  such  things 
were  in  the  nineteenth  century.  It  will  seem  to  them  as 
strange  as  it  does  to  us  when  we  read  that  our  savage  ances- 
tors ate  their  dinners  with  their  fingers,  wore  sheepskin  clothes 
for  a  lifetime,  and  went  to  bed  between  foul  rugs,  without 
any  clothes  at  allr 

No  doubt  the  reformers  of  those  days  were  asked  with 
sneers  how  the  people  were  to  procure  so  many  forks  and 
nightgowns,  just  as  we  are  asked  to-day  how  we  are  going  to 
abolish  smoking  chimneys.  Our  answer  is  that  it  can  be 
done  —  it  can  be  done  by  science,  labour,  economy,  and 
public  opinion.  And  therefore  it  must  be  done,  and  the 
sooner  the  better.  When  we  stand  on  the  Capitol  or  the 
Pincian  Hill  at  Rome,  or  look  down  over  Florence  from  the 
Boboli  Terrace;  when  we  survey  Paris  from  Notre  Dame, 
or  Genoa  from  the  Church  of  Carignans ;  when  we  see  how 
glorious  and  happy  is  the  look  of  a  smokeless  city  in  a  bright 
sky,  how  refreshing  are  the  terraces,  housetops,  and  balconies 
bright  with  flowers  and  laid  out  with  summer  arbours  and 
garden  retreats  —  it  makes  one  boil  with  indignation  to  think 
that  in  our  own  cities  at  home  neither  house  gardens  nor 
arbours  are  possible,  from  the  gross  indifference  with  which 
we  suffer  preventable  nuisances  to  choke  us. 

In  the  good  time  coming  rivers  of  pure  mountain  water 
will  be  carried  into  London  by  gigantic  aqueducts,  as  at 


288  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

ancient  Rome.  We  shall  no  longer  run  the  risk  of  poison 
from  polluted  drains,  or  of  a  water  famine  from  the  shrink- 
ing of  a  petty  river.  Our  water  supply  will  come  from 
inexhaustible  lakes  and  reservoirs.  Ancient  Rome,  with  its 
fourteen  aqueducts,  is  the  true  type;  it  has  never  yet  been 
surpassed,  or  even  equalled.  Already  some  northern  cities 
are  fairly  supplied  in  a  similar  way.  It  would  have  been  done 
for  London  long  ago,  but  for  commercial  self-interest,  politi- 
cal intrigue,  and  administrative  jealousy  and  confusion.  It 
is  a  blot  on  our  modern  civilisation  that  the  water  supply 
of  London  is  still  so  scanty,  so  impure,  so  uncertain,  and  so 
dear. 

In  the  good  time  coming  we  shall  not  buy  water  of  money- 
making  speculators  any  more  than  we  now  buy  fresh  air,  or 
a  ticket  for  Hyde  Park,  or  a  pass  across  London  Bridge. 
Water,  like  air,  highways,  and  parks,  is  a  prime  necessity  of 
civilised  life,  and  it  is  the  business  of  the  State  to  supply  it  to 
citizens  freely,  in  absolute  purity  and  unlimited  abundance. 
I  can  remember  a  time  when  several  bridges  over  the  Thames 
exacted  tolls,  and  when  London  was  surrounded  with  turn- 
pikes. It  sounds  incredible  to  us  that  our  fathers  could  en- 
dure such  a  drag  on  civilisation.  And  it  will  sound  incredible 
to  our  descendants  that  we  suffered  water  to  be  bought  and 
sold  and  haggled  for  in  the  market.  We  must  go  back  to 
the  standard  of  Rome  with  free  and  unlimited  water,  with 
baths  and  public  wash-houses  in  every  main  thoroughfare. 

Pure  water>  unlimited  in  quantity,  accessible  to  all,  fresh 
air,  spacious  highways,  ample  recreation  grounds  —  these 
things  are  a  necessity  of  health,  and  the  health  of  the  citizens 
is  a  primary  public  concern.  It  has  been  the  pride  of  the  last 
half -century  that  vast  sanitary  reform  has  been  accomplished. 
And  the  proof  of  it  is  found  in  the  diminishing  death-rate  of 
most  great  cities,  and  in  the  highest  degree  of  London. 


IDEAL   LONDON  289 

There  are  cities  in  Europe  to-day  where  the  death-rate  is 
double  that  of  London  —  nay,  where  it  is  three  times  what 
the  death-rate  of  London  has  been  for  whole  months  within 
the  last  year.  The  normal  death-rate  of  Cairo  is  nearly  three 
times  that  of  London;  80,000  lives  per  annum  at  least  are 
saved  in  London  which  would  be  sacrificed  but  for  the 
advance  of  sanitary  science  and  municipal  reform.  But  we 
are  only  at  the  beginning  of  our  task.  The  rate  in  London 
may  now  be  said  to  be  brought  well  below  20  per  1000.  In 
the  good  time  to  come  it  will  be  brought  down  to  ten.  At 
this  moment  there  are  squares  and  terraces  in  the  West  where 
the  rate  is  not  so  high  as  this.  The  death-rate  of  Derby  this 
very  week  is  under  ten.  And  to  this  ideal  limit  it  must  be 
brought  before  sanitary  reform  has  said  its  last  word. 

That  word  will  not  be  said  until  every  sewer  is  as  free  from 
poisonous  gas  and  deadly  ferments  as  a  scullery  sink  in  a  well- 
found  house,  until  the  suspicion  of  preventable  infection  and 
contagion  is  entirely  removed,  until  the  infants  of  the  poor 
are  no  more  destroyed  by  unintentional  infanticide  than  are 
the  infants  of  the  rich,  until  birth,  measles,  whooping-cough, 
and  scarlatina  have  ceased  to  decimate  the  homes  of  the  care- 
less, the  ignorant,  and  the  indigent.  As  it  is,  at  least  a  quarter 
of  our  present  death-rate  is  due  to  conditions  which  if  those 
responsible  were  not  so  helpless  and  so  ignorant  would  amount 
to  manslaughter  and  even  murder.  And  perhaps  a  fifth  of 
the  death-rate  over  and  above  this  is  due  to  conditions  which 
are  distinctly  preventible  by  science  and  by  organisation.  In 
the  good  time  to  come  the  50,000  or  60,000  lives  we  slaughter 
annually  in  London  alone  by  our  stupidity  and  misman- 
agement will  be  told  by  our  descendants  as  an  abnormal 
barbarism  such  as  caused  the  Plague  and  the  Black  Death 
of  old. 

I  am  speaking,  I  trust  you  will  believe,  by  no  means  at 


290  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

random  and  by  a  vague  guess,  but  from  long  and  careful 
comparison  of  various  statistics.  I  will  give  you  one  striking 
example.  Rome,  having  become  the  capital  of  Italy,  set 
about  a  vigorous  reform  of  its  sanitary  condition.  Now,  the 
climate  around  Rome  is  one  of  the  most  dangerous  and  un- 
certain in  Europe,  and  the  physical  conditions  of  Rome, 
except  for  its  grand  water  supply,  offer  many  peculiar  diffi- 
culties. Yet  in  twenty  years  Rome  has  reduced  its  death- 
'rate  by  one-third,  in  spite  of  doubling  its  population.  In 
100  years  the  death-rate  of  London  has  been  reduced  by  one- 
half,  in  spite  of  its  enormous  increase.  Within  the  last  ten 
years  the  deaths  in  many  great  cities  of  North  Europe,  even 
under  the  very  difficult  conditions  of  such  countries  as  Hol- 
land and  Belgium,  have  been  reduced  by  10  and  20  per  cent. 
It  is  a  question  entirely  of  science,  organisation,  education. 
There  are  spots  even  now  where  a  death-rate  of  8  per  thou- 
sand has  been  known.  Lonclon,  when  it  has  a  clean  Thames 
and  abundant  and  pure  water,  will  be  naturally  one  of  the 
healthiest  places  in  Europe.  Why  should  its  death-rate  be 
18  instead  of  8?  For  no  reason  but  for  bad  government, 
ignorance,  and  indifference,  public  as  well  as  private. 

The  problem  of  health  will  take  a  foremost  place  in  the 
municipal  organisation  of  the  future ;  and  a  large  part  of  the 
problem  concerns  the  treatment  of  disease  and  death.  The 
hospitals  of  Ideal  London  will  not  be  imposing  palaces,  filling 
the  best  sites  and  endangering  the  health  of  the  city.  All  that 
is  a  mediaeval  tradition,  maintained  for  the  convenience  of  the 
doctors  in  large  practice,  and  with  the  advertising  aim  of  being 
always  in  public  view.  Small  accident  and  emergency  wards 
will  be  multiplied  at  convenient  spots.  But  the  great  stand- 
ing hospitals  will  be  removed  to  airy  suburbs,  reached  by 
special  rail  and  tram  lines  with  ambulance  cars  of  wonderful 
ingenuity,  the  hospitals  themselves  being  constantly  disin- 


IDEAL  LONDON  291 

fected,  pulled  to  pieces,  and  rebuilt,  so  as  at  last  to  get  rid  of 
hospital  pyaemia  and  the  melancholy  death-rate  of  our  actual 
clumsy  pest-houses. 

The  disposal  of  the  dead  is  an  even  more  urgent  problem. 
I  am  old  enough  to  remember  the  dark  ages  when  the  popu- 
lation of  London  was  interred  in  graveyards  within  the  City 
itself.  One  of  my  memories  as  a  child  was  that  of  occasional 
residence  in  a  house  which  actually  abutted  on  such  a  burial- 
ground,  and  my  leisure  hours  were  much  absorbed  in  watch- 
ing the  funerals  hour  by  hour.  I  am  one  of  those  who  sur- 
vived this  atrocious  custom,  which  still  endangers  the  health 
of  our  city,  and  for  generations  to  come  will  continue  to  be  a 
source  of  infection.  Some  fifty  years  ago  the  intra-mural 
graveyards  were  closed  and  the  suburban  cemeteries  were 
formed.  But,  alas !  they  are  suburban  no  longer.  The  ever 
advancing  city  has  begun  to  encircle  them,  and  they  are  again 
becoming  a  new  source  of  infection  and  nuisance.  They  are 
driving  us  to  more  and  more  outlying  cemeteries,  which  can 
only  be  reached  by  a  long  railway  journey,  and  are  to  all  of 
us  difficult  to  visit. 

The  result  is  this.  A  city  which  requires  its  80,000  inter- 
ments year  by  year  is  compelled  to  bury  its  dead  either  in 
cemeteries,  overcrowded  and  practically  within  the  city  of 
the  living,  or  else  in  cemeteries  so  far  from  its  city  that  each 
funeral  involves  a  fatiguing  and  costly  journey,  and  visits  to 
the  tomb  of  the  departed  loved  ones  become  rare  or  im- 
practicable. If  the  population  of  London  continues  to  in- 
crease it  will  soon  need  year  by  year  100,000  burials  —  equal 
to  the  whole  population  of  famous  cities  in  old  times.  Where 
can  these  be  disposed  of  with  safety,  so  as  not  to  be  put 
away  from  us  for  ever,  and  that  only  after  a  wearisome  and 
expensive  travel?  In  this  dilemma  I  do  not  doubt  that 
London  will  largely  return  to  the  ancient  and  honoured 


292  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

practice  of  cremation.  Cremation  affords  to  the  living  abso- 
lute protection  from  infection  and  poison ;  to  the  survivors  it 
spares  them  the  horrible  associations  of  the  decaying  remains ; 
it  solves  the  problem  which  awaits  us  —  the  appalling  accu- 
mulation of  some  millions  of  corpses  in  one  city  in  each 
decade ;  and  it  enables  the  family  to  place  the  inurned  ashes 
of  those  they  cherish  in  a  church,  or  in  a  cloister,  or  in  a  city 
graveyard,  or  in  any  spot,  above  ground  or  under  ground, 
public  or  private,  close  at  hand,  and  yet  entirely  void  of 
offence,  where  the  sacred  remains  may  be  visited  from  time 
to  time  with  perfect  ease  and  peace.  It  is  too  much  forgotten 
that  cremation  is  a  scientific  process  for  preparing  the  re- 
mains of  the  dead  for  such  permanent  disposal  as  we  please 
to  select,  and  whether  by  interment  or  not.  The  calcined 
residuum  of  the  body  is  no  longer  a  horror  and  pollution  to 
the  living,  but  may  be  preserved  for  ages  either  in  a  visible 
urn  in  some  consecrated  spot,  or  buried  in  a  grave  or  vault 
precisely  like  a  coffin.  All  the  sacred  associations  of  the 
tomb,  all  the  genius  loci  of  the  grave,  are  retained  when  the 
purified  ashes  are  shrined  in  their  urn  and  set  up  in  monu- 
ment or  niche.  So  in  my  visions  I  see  the  London  that  is  to 
be  filled  with  mausoleums  and  chapels  and  cloisters,  wherein 
the  dust  of  generations  will  lie  in  perfect  peace  yet  in  the 
midst  of  the  living,  far  from  all  possible  danger  or  offence, 
yet  always  before  their  sight  and  present  to  their  memory, 
be  it  in  some  consecrated  urn,  or  beneath  the  sod  in  their 
midst,  or  underneath  the  pavement  that  is  trodden  by  genera- 
tions to  come. 

The  problem  of  reorganising  London  has  taken  a  new 
phase  since  the  division  into  sixty  parliamentary  boroughs. 
London  is  being  gradually  broken  up  into  manageable  parts, 
each  of  which  is  a  large  and  rich  municipality  with  its  own 
administration  and  local  institutions  and  buildings.  Some 


IDEAL  LONDON  293 

of  these,  such  as  Battersea,  Chelsea,  Poplar,  and  Westminster, 
are  beginning  to  show  real  municipal  life.  The  movement  is 
still  in  formation.  But  it  opens  a  vision  of  the  future  when, 
with  an  adequate  central  government  and  a  real  unity  of 
London  as  a  whole,  its  component  parts  may  have  their  own 
local  institutions,  life,  and  character;  their  own  halls, libraries, 
schools,  museums,  playgrounds,  parks,  and  public  centres,  so 
that  the  life  of  a  great  city  may  be  offered  to  all  citizens  within 
a  mile  of  their  own  homes  and  within  reach  of  their  own 
influence. 

The  London  that  is  to  be,  if,  indeed,  it  is  to  remain  with  a 
population  counted  by  millions,  will  be  an  aggregate  of  many 
cities,  each  equal  in  area  to  Nottingham  or  Edinburgh,  and 
each  possessing  a  complete  city  organisation  of  its  own,  but 
all  uniting  in  one  central  civic  constitution.  The  great  arteries 
of  communication  will  be  broad  and  stately  boulevards,  with- 
out the  artificial  monotony  of  the  new  avenues  in  Paris,  and 
without  the  makeshift  meanness  of  Shaftesbury  Avenue  and 
the  Charing  Cross  Road.  The  traveller  who  h'ngers  with 
delight  round  the  Hotel  de  Ville  and  the  Fountain  of  the 
Innocents  in  Paris ;  in  the  Via  Balbi  and  round  San  Lorenzo 
at  Genoa ;  in  the  old  Piazzas  of  Florence  and  Venice ;  who 
strolls  along  the  Corso  at  Rome,  feels  his  heart  sink  within 
him  as  he  returns  to  the  biggest  and  richest  city  of  the  world, 
and  marks  how  grimy,  and  filthy,  and  inconvenient  are  the 
streets  and  open  spaces  and  public  buildings  of  London. 
Neither  breadth,  nor  dignity,  nor  permanence,  nor  self- 
respect  (to  say  nothing  of  art  and  beauty)  seem  ever  to  have 
suggested  themselves  to  the  tasteless  tradesmen  who  (we  sup- 
pose) ordered  from  ignorant  carpenters  the  cheapest  and 
commonest  sort  of  road  or  hall  which  contractors  could  erect. 
But  it  is  not  to  last  for  ever.  Ideal  London  will  far  surpass 
actual  Paris  in  natural  conditions,  and  I  think  in  free  play 


294  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

of  thought  and  aim.  The  race  which  built  the  Abbey,  and 
Westminster  Hall,  St.  Paul's,  the  Banqueting  Hall,  and  laid 
out  Piccadilly  and  the  parks  cannot  be  wholly  incapable  of  a 
noble  building.  Even  now  the  energy  and  individuality  of 
our  character  is  asserting  itself  through  the  pall  of  conven- 
tion and  frivolity  which,  since  the  Reformation  and  the  civil 
wars,  has  afflicted  us  as  a  nation.  London  has  magnificent 
opportunities,  and  carries  within  it  the  germs  of  noble  art. 
The  Ideal  London  of  our  dreams  —  nay,  of  our  descendants 
—  will  be  one  of  the  noblest  cities  of  Europe,  a  model  of 
healthfulness,  dignity,  and  convenience. 

We  want  no  Haussmanns  and  emperors  here  to  drive  uni- 
form boulevards  or  rectangular  squares  through  the  old  City, 
on  the  plan  of  a  chess-board  or  a  figure  in  geometry.  The 
mechanical  planning  of  a  city,  so  dear  to  transatlantic  fancy 
and  to  the  vanity  of  an  autocrat  in  Europe,  does  not  fall  in 
with  English  habits  and  our  secular  traditions.  I  hope  that 
the  historic  streets  of  London  will  ever  be  maintained,  and 
the  associations  of  the  Strand,  Ludgate  Hill,  Charing  Cross, 
Bishopsgate  and  Aldgate,  Holborn  and  Piccadilly,  may  live 
for  centuries  yet.  I  incline  to  think  that  it  is  as  well  that 
Wren's  magnificent,  but  too  geometric  and  revolutionary, 
scheme  for  rebuilding  London  after  the  Fire  was  never  carried 
out.  It  was  magnificent,  but  it  was  not  practical.  It  was 
not  practical,  in  that  it  would  have  swept  away  the  history 
and  traditions  of  London,  just  as  the  history  and  traditions  of 
the  old  City  of  Paris  in  the  Island  have  been  swept  away  by 
the  Imperial  demolitions.  No !  let  us  keep  the  history  and 
the  traditions  of  London,  even  at  the  cost  of  some  irregularity, 
narrowness,  and  inconveniences  in  the  old  streets,  retaining 
infinite  variety  in  the  form  and  style  of  the  buildings  along 
them.  Tradition  and  variety  in  an  ancient  city  outweigh  all 
the  regularity  and  symmetry  of  modern  reconstruction. 


IDEAL  LONDON  295 

If  any  one  desires  to  see  what  has  been  done  of  late  years, 
and  what  it  was  hoped  to  do  in  London  improvements,  let 
him  study  an  important  new  work  issued  by  the  London 
County  Council,  and  prepared  by  Mr.  Percy  Edwards,  the  able 
clerk  of  the  Improvements  Committee.  They  will  see  what 
Wren  desired  to  make  of  London  in  1666,  what  London  was 
in  1855,  what  it  is  to-day,  and  all  the  changes  made  in  it  these 
forty-three  years.  It  is  a  record  of  many  improvements,  not 
a  few  blunders,  many  fine  schemes  ruined  by  a  cheese-paring 
economy,  by  political  conflicts,  by  interested  intrigues,  by 
local  jealousies,  stupidity,  bad  taste,  and  lethargy.  But,  as 
we  study  that  record  of  the  edility  of  London  for  forty-three 
years,  we  need  not  despair  of  the  London  that  is  to  be. 

We  shall  not  destroy  the  old  historic  lines  and  landmarks 
of  London,  which,  as  an  organised  city,  has  an  unbroken 
record  of  a  thousand  years  since  Alfred  rebuilt  it  after  rescuing 
it  from  the  Danes.  We  shall  not  sweep  away  the  great  lines 
and  landmarks  of  mediaeval  London ;  but  the  hopelessly  rotten 
and  festering  slums  of  the  old  crowded  areas  will  have  to  be 
purified  and  rebuilt,  and  the  inhabitants  replaced  in  airy  and 
commodious  dwellings,  at  least  half  of  them  in  fresh  and 
healthy  suburbs.  But  the  old  lines  and  lanes  of  mediaeval 
London  are  hopelessly  congested  and  need  a  vigorous  treat- 
ment. We  shall  not  abolish  Fleet  Street  and  the  Strand, 
Cornhill,  Gracechurch  Street,  Holborn,  and  Chancery  Lane ; 
but  we  shall  add  on  new  lines  of  communication  that  will 
relieve  the  arterial  traffic.  The  heavy  traffic  of  merchandise, 
stores,  and  plant  passing  across  London,  or  along  it  from  line 
to  line,  will  be  carried  by  deep  electric  railways  underground, 
and  also  some  light  conveyance  will  be  effected  by  new 
aerostatic  modes  of  transit.  It  will  be  considered  ridiculous 
to  send  machinery,  coals,  or  heavy  goods  by  the  ordinary 
streets,  which  will  be  immensely  relieved  by  the  almost  uni- 


296  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

versal  adoption  of  automobile  cars  in  place  of  horse-carriages. 
I  do  not  mean  the  horrid,  stinking,  rattling  motor-cars  we  see 
to-day,  but  beautiful  and  elegant  vehicles,  which  will  run 
quietly  and  silently  by  mechanical  power.  The  main  needs 
of  London  are  easy  and  open  avenues  of  communication 
from  north  to  south,  and  across  the  Thames  from  Middlesex 
to  Surrey.  These  in  the  good  times  to  come  will  be  doubled 
or  trebled,  partly  by  new  bridges  across  our  noble  river  and 
partly  by  sub-aqueous  tunnels,  fit  for  both  rail,  horse,  and 
foot  traffic."  Especially  there  will  be  adequate  avenues  from 
the  main  northern,  or  Middlesex,  railway  termini  to  the  main 
termini  on  the  south,  or  Surrey  side.  Of  these  the  proposed 
street  from  Holborn  to  the  Strand  (the  most  urgent  of  all  the 
London  problems)  will  form  but  a  part.  It  is  a  most  cheering 
and  curious  fact  that  this  indispensable  improvement  can  now 
be  carried  out,  when  treated  on  lines  sufficiently  bold  and 
thorough,  at  a  positive  profit  to  the  ratepayer,  and  without 
any  ultimate  expense  to  him  at  all.  This  also  was  done  when 
Northumberland  Avenue  was  made.  And  these  examples 
prove  that  a  wise  and  bold  improvement  in  our  city  is  a 
commercial  success,  and  not  a  burden  to  the  public  purse. 
The  great  triumph  of  war,  said  the  Conqueror,  is  to  make 
war  support  itself.  And  the  triumph  of  the  City  aedile,  who 
wars  on  decay  and  obstruction,  is  so  to  make  his  improve- 
ments that,  whilst  they  immensely  promote  the  health  and 
comfort  of  the  citizen,  they  shall  actually  fill  his  budget 
instead  of  laying  on  him  burdens. 

In  the  good  days  to  come,  then,  our  Ideal  London,  our 
glorious  city  of  Alfred  and  the  Conqueror,  of  Chaucer  and 
Milton,  of  Inigo  Jones  and  Wren,  of  Johnson  and  Goldsmith, 
of  Dickens  and  Lamb  and  Thackeray,  will  be  as  bright  and 
gay,  as  full  of  foliage  and  flowers,  fountains  and  statues,  as 
Paris  or  Florence,  but  without  the  monotony  and  the  con- 


IDEAL   LONDON  297 

ventional  boulevard-driving  which  ruined  Paris  and  have 
begun  to  ruin  both  Florence  and  Rome.  Our  vast  city  will 
then  raise  up  its  towers  and  steeples  into  a  sky  as  bright  and 
pure  as  that  of  Richmond  Park.  Coal  smoke  will  be  abolished 
as  an  intolerable  nuisance,  as  unpardonable  as  a  cess-pit  or 
an  open  sewer.  And  I  dream  in  my  dreams  that  Science  in 
the  good  days  to  come  will  invent  a  new  tobacco,  which,  whilst 
appeasing  the  craving  of  the  smoker,  will  not  be  poisonous  and 
offensive  to  those  about  him.  In  these  days  we  should  need 
no  smoking  cars  in  the  trains,  and  could  even  sit  on  the 
garden  seat  of  an  omnibus  without  the  risk  of  being  choked 
by  a  very  foul  pipe.  It  would  be  ridiculous,  if  we  abolish 
the  nuisance  of  chimneys,  that  we  should  retain  the  still  more 
noxious  effluvia  of  the  pipe.  Women,  who,  I  suppose,  in 
those  days  will  form  the  working  majority  of  Parliament,  if 
not  of  the  Ministry,  will,  no  doubt,  hi  good  time  see  to  all 
this. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  hi  the  good  time  to  come  our  city  will  be 
as  pleasant  to  live  in  as  are  Oxford  or  Leamington  or  Bath 
to-day.  The  Tower  of  London,  the  most  impressive  and 
most  venerable  civic  building  in  Europe,  will  be  cleared  and 
freed  from  intrusive  and  dangerous  lodgers,  and  will  be 
occupied  only  by  a  military  guard.  Wren's  glorious  temple 
at  St.  Paul's  will  rise,  white  and  majestic  as  the  St.  Peter's 
of  Michael  Angelo,  and  much  more  beautiful,  thrusting  its 
radiant  colonnade  and  dome  into  a  blue  sky,  where  the  golden 
cross  will  glitter  in  the  pure  air  like  the  spires  of  Chichester 
and  Salisbury  to-day.  The  pile  of  shops  and  ignoble  ware- 
houses around  it  will  have  disappeared  like  a  bad  dream,  and 
the  great  Cathedral  will  stand  in  a  vast  open  space,  approached 
on  four  sides  by  stately  avenues.  So  with  the  British  Museum 
and  our  few  other  fine  buildings. 

The  silver  Thames,  without  a  trace  of  sewage  or  of  mud, 


298  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

will  flow  brightly  between  its  double  line  of  embankments 
covered  with  shady  trees  and  adorned  with  statues  and  foun- 
tains. The  vast  concave  curve  of  the  Middlesex  side  of  the 
River,  from  Chelsea  to  the  Tower,  will  give  scope  to  new 
and  varied  forms  of  architectural  development.  The  old 
mtra-mural  graveyards  will  serve  as  sites  for  lovely  cloisters 
wherein  will  rest  in  graceful  urns  the  ashes  of  the  City  ances- 
tors. And  around  the  venerable  Abbey  —  when  its  thou- 
sandth anniversary  comes  to  pass  in  the  twenty-third  century 
—  will  be  a  new  consecrated  temple  of  peace,  reconciliation, 
and  honour,  where  a  grateful  people  will  enshrine  the  remains 
of  the  great  dead  ones  whom  it  resolves  to  bury  "to  the  noise 
of  the  mourning  of  a  mighty  nation." 

POSTSCRIPT,  1906 

In  these  last  eight  years  not  a  little  has  been  done  on  the 
long  upward  march  towards  an  Ideal  London  —  a  good  deal 
too  in  the  lines  adumbrated  above.  Sanitation  in  all  its  forms, 
water-supply,  parks,  museums,  libraries,  playgrounds,  open 
spaces,  arterial  new  streets,  flats  and  tenement  lodgings,  re- 
moval of  hospitals,  schools,  prisons,  mechanical  locomotives, 
smoke  abatement,  cremation  —  all  are  beginning  to  stir  in  the 
dry  bones  of  old-world  London. 


MUSIC   IN   GREAT  CITIES 

1898 

ONE  of  the  leading  features  of  the  reorganisation  of  London, 
as  I  can  conceive  it  in  the  future,  will  be  the  formation  of 
permanent  centres  of  musical  culture.  Music  is  the  most 
social,  the  most  affecting,  the  purest  of  the  arts ;  the  one  most 
deeply  connected  with  the  moral  side  of  civilisation.  It  stands 
alone  in  the  arts  as  hardly  capable  of  being  distorted  to  minis- 
ter to  luxury,  evil,  or  ostentation.  One  can  hardly  imagine 
vicious  music,  or  purse-proud  music,  or  selfish  music.  It  is 
by  its  very  nature  social,  emotional,  and  humanising.  Hence 
I  hold  music  to  be  the  art  which  specially  concerns  all  social 
reformers  and  popular  teachers.  And,  as  we  have  pointed 
out  to  Mr.  Ruskin  and  the  aesthetic  pessimists,  these  latter 
ages  cannot  be  called  deficient  in  art,  since  they  have  im- 
mensely magnified  the  most  human  of  all  the  arts  of  sense. 

I  am  no  musician,  and  do  not  pretend  to  say  a  word  about 
music  as  an  art.  But,  as  one  who  delights  in  music,  and  who 
has  long  sought  to  bring  out  its  social  and  civilising  mission, 
I  have  been  very  much  struck  with  the  fact  that  music  is 
dependent  in  a  curious  degree  on  the  material  conditions  of 
our  civic  life.  Pictures,  statues,  poems,  can  be  sent  about 
and  multiplied  in  various  forms  ad  infinitum.  The  poorest 
home  can  contain  a  Shakespeare,  a  cast,  or  an  engraving. 
A  great  cathedral  may  impress  the  spirit  of  millions,  even  as 
they  walk  to  their  business  under  its  shadow.  But  music  of 
a  high  kind,  though  it  knows  no  limitations  of  country,  age, 
or  material  —  though  it  is  free  of  time,  space,  and  matter  — 

299 


300  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

does  need  trained  powers  of  execution,  the  combination  of 
suitable  hearers  and  performers,  and  above  all,  a  place  exactly 
corresponding  to  the  kind  of  art  performed. 

Music  is  peculiarly  dependent,  both  for  its  artistic  and 
social  value,  on  the  material  conditions  of  social  organisation. 
It  needs  three  things:  (i)  highly  trained  executants;  (2)  a 
permanent  and  duly  trained  audience ;  (3)  a  place  of  per- 
formance, convenient  to  the  audience,  and  suitable  to  the 
artistic  conditions. 

Now  London  easily  gives  us  the  first.  But  by  its  enormous 
inorganic  bulk  it  makes  the  second  condition  very  rare  and 
difficult.  And  strangely  enough,  in  spite  of  its  wealth  and 
energy,  perhaps  by  reason  of  its  wealth  and  energy,  it  does 
not  give  us  the  third.  I  have  been  from  my  youth  a  diligent 
attendant  at  many  of  our  best  series  of  concerts ;  and  in  days 
when  I  had  more  leisure,  I  made  great  sacrifices  and  under- 
went great  trouble  to  do  so.  But  the  huge  floating  mobs  of 
London,  and  the  rage  of  "undertakers"  to  collect  mobs,  have 
almost  driven  me  out  and  make  me  nearly  hopeless.  I  have 
watched  scores  of  times  how  all  serious  music  and  all  serious 
artists  have  to  educate  their  audience  gradually  by  a  long  and 
conscientious  work  of  cultivation.  A  great  musician  has,  I 
hold,  more  to  do  to  train  his  audience  than  to  train  his 
orchestra.  No  audience  can  become  worthy  to  listen  to  great 
music  fitly  performed,  unless  it  is  a  permanent  and  painstak- 
ing audience;  unless  it  labours  honestly  to  understand  the 
master  and  his  interpreters.  And  it  is  just  this  permanence 
and  this  self-educating  spirit  that  the  floating  mob  of  Lon- 
don chokes.  Just  as  the  audience  is  pulling  itself  together 
and  becoming  fit  to  be  played  to,  the  series  of  concerts  be- 
comes fashionable,  or  the  season  begins;  the  mob  breaks 
in,  and  all  goes  wrong.  How  delightful  the day  con- 
certs used  to  be  till  fine  people  took  them  up,  and  till  the 


MUSIC  IN   GREAT   CITIES  301 

balls  began.  Who  can  listen  to  a  chaconne  whilst  a  bare- 
shouldered  dowager  and  her  three  daughters  are  hurrying 
past  one  to  the  first  dance !  No,  a  permanent  self  -respecting, 
art-respecting  audience  must  consist  of  quiet  people,  living 
within  a  moderate  distance  of  each  other  and  of  the  concert- 
hall.  And  this  we  cannot  have  till  London  is  grouped  into 
smaller  social  units. 

Besides,  London  with  all  its  wealth  and  size  does  not  give 
us  suitable  concert-halls.  They  are  all  either  too  big,  ill- 
shaped  for  musical  purposes,  inconveniently  placed,  or  repul- 
sively like  a  schoolroom.  I  cannot  call  to  mind  one  concert- 
hall  in  London  which  does  not  sin  in  one  or  other  of  these 
four  conditions.  To  ask  us  to  listen  to  a  great  violin  in 
company  with  3000  others  (some  of  them  talking  German, 
American,  or  Cockney;  some  of  them  hurrying  out  to  a 
"crush")  is  mere  torment.  No,  I  will  no  longer  go  to  hear 
the  finest  violin  solo  on  earth  with  more  than  four  or  five 
hundred  of  my  fellow-beings;  and  I  should  greatly  prefer 
three  hundred.  To  give  what  is  facetiously  called  "a  con- 
cert" in  a  colosseum  which  holds  fifteen  thousand  people  is 
an  impertinence.  Time  was  when  I  never  missed  an  ora- 
torio. But  I  have  never  heard  one  yet,  in  an  arena  which 
seems  designed  for  a  bull-fight  or  a  hippodrome.  And  much 
as  I  honour  Mr.  Manns,  I  cannot  now  spend  a  day  hi  going 
to  Sydenham  in  order  to  hear  three  pieces,  the  utmost  that  I 
care  for  at  the  same  sitting.  There  is  not  one  perfect  con- 
cert-hall in  London.  The and  the are  only  fit  for 

public  meetings ;  the will  do  for  a  symphony,  but  it  is 

too  big  for  a  solo  or  a  quartet.     The is  pretty ;  but  its 

proper  purpose  is  a  fancy  ball.     In  the  —   —  and  the one 

can  hear  a  quartet  to  advantage ;  but  then  they  look  like  a 
class-room  in  a  board-school,  and  the  seats  are  as  bad  as  a 
third-class  box  on  the  South-Eastern  Railway.  The  ideal 


302  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

concert-hall  should  hold  500  persons  comfortably;  it  should 
be  within  an  easy  walk  of  their  homes ;  it  should  have  ample 
passages,  exits,  cloak-rooms,  artists'  and  committee-rooms; 
it  should  have  pure  air,  cool  temperature,  no  gas,  no  noise, 
and  no  suggestions  either  of  Mohawk  Minstrels  or  fried  fish. 
Lastly,  it  should  be  beautiful :  architecture,  decoration,  and 
fittings  should  be  of  an  art  worthy  to  invite  us  to  the  high  art 
we  meet  to  cultivate.  London  has  no  such  concert-hall ;  and 
it  is  a  burning  shame. 

Mobs,  money-seeking  managers,  fashionable  people,  and 
the  wilderness  of  a  city  that  we  live  in,  make  all  this  as  yet 
impossible.  Musical  art,  more  than  other  art,  needs  an 
organised  social  life,  within  permanent  and  moderate  limits. 
Leeds,  Manchester,  Birmingham,  the  Crystal  Palace,  and 
other  provincial  centres  teach  us  the  same  lesson.  Even  in 
Germany,  where  the  capitals  are  not  so  vast  and  inorganic 
as  London,  the  true  life  of  music  is  in  the  lesser  towns.  Music 
absolutely  needs  an  organised  civic  society,  neither  too  vast 
nor  too  petty.  For  the  Rubinsteins,  Joachims,  Pattis,  and 
Reeveses,  for  the  highest  typical  examples  of  what  voice  and 
hand  can  reach  hi  art,  whole  populations  and  continents  may 
be  ransacked  for  an  audience.  But  the  blubbery  immensity 
of  London  adds  nothing,  even  to  them.  The  great  social 
and  civilising  uses  of  music  can  be  built  up  but  slowly  out 
of  many  local  centres  of  art. 

POSTSCRIPT,  1906 

Things,  they  say,  are  even  worse  now.  The  very  Minstrels 
and  fish  are  gone.  London  prefers  to  have  its  music  while  it 
is  eating. 


HISTORIC  PARIS 

1894 

OF  all  the  millions  of  visitors  who  throng  into  Paris,  how 
few  attempt  to  learn  anything  about  the  history  of  the  vener- 
able city,  which  they  treat  as  if  it  were  a  summer  watering-place 
or  a  fashionable  lounge.  These  very  same  people,  when  they 
go  on  to  Venice,  Florence,  or  Rome,  devote  themselves  with 
zeal  to  the  ancient  buildings,  to  the  historical  associations, 
and  to  the  local  art  of  these  beautiful  remnants  of  antiquity. 
At  least,  the  more  cultivated  section  of  travellers  ransack  the 
churches,  dive  into  ruins,  listen  to  learned  disquisitions,  and 
profess  for  a  time  quite  a  passion  for  antiquarian  research, 
and  for  any  fragment  of  historic  survival  which  their  guides, 
ciceroni,  and  books  of  travel  can  point  out.  There  is  for 
Paris  no  Ruskin,  no  Browning,  no  Lanciani  or  Hawthorne. 

Yet  Paris  was  a  famous  and  cultivated  city  ages  before 
Venice ;  its  history  is  far  richer  and  older  and  more  instruc- 
tive than  that  of  Florence ;  it  has  more  remnants  of  mediaeval 
art,  and  even  a  deeper  mediaeval  interest,  than  Rome  itself. 
And  if  we  search  for  them  we  may  find  in  it  historical  asso- 
ciations that  may  vie  with  those  of  any  city  in  the  world  except 
Rome  and  Constantinople;  and  even  its  antiquarian  and 
artistic  remains  are  seldom  equalled  or  surpassed.  At  Rome, 
Florence,  or  Venice,  the  tourist  talks  of  old  churches,  palaces, 
and  remains :  at  Paris  he  gives  himself  up  to  the  boulevards, 
the  theatres,  shops,  and  races.  The  profoundly  instructive 
history,  the  profuse  antiquarian  remains  of  the  great  city,  are 
forgotten  —  carent  quia  vate  sacro. 

No  doubt  there  is  fascination  on  the  boulevards ;  and  the 

303 


304  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

miles  of  luxurious  places  that  the  Vanity  Fair  of  Europe  offers 
to  the  pilgrim  form  a  huge  screen  behind  which  the  busy 
pleasure-seeker  has  no  inclination  to  penetrate.  He  stares 
at  N6tre  Dame  and  the  Sainte  Chapelle,  plods  through  the 
long  gallery  of  the  Louvre,  sees  the  tomb  of  Napoleon  and 
Versailles,  and  is  then  ready  for  the  Bois,  the  opera,  or 
Durand.  But  any  cultivated  traveller,  who  chose  to  make 
a  study  of  Paris  with  the  same  historical  interest  and  love  of 
art  that  he  takes  to  the  cities  of  Italy,  would  find  inexhaustible 
material  for  thought.  The  minor  historical  remains  of  Paris 
do  not  lie  so  much  en  evidence  as  the  Ducal  Palace,  the 
Palazzo  Vecchio,  or  the  Colosseum,  and  no  one  pretends  that 
any  of  them  have  the  charm  and  eternal  interest  of  these. 
But  they  are  easy  enough  to  find,  and  not  very  difficult  to 
disentangle  from  later  accretions.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
books,  drawings,  and  illustrations,  by  the  help  of  which  they 
may  be  studied,  are  more  complete  and  numerous  than  they 
are  for  any  other  city  but  Rome.  It  is  true  that  old  Paris  is 
not  so  imposing  a  city  as  old  Rome.  It  has  suffered  much 
more  mutilation,  disfigurement,  and  modernisation  than  old 
Venice,  or  old  Florence.  But  then  it  is  a  much  more  accessible 
and  familiar  place :  and,  Rome  and  Constantinople  apart,  its 
historical  associations  are  second  to  none  in  Europe. 

It  is  worth  noting  that  Paris  is  now,  in  1894,  at  last  com- 
plete and  practically  uniform  as  a  city,  and  this  can  hardly 
be  said  of  it  at  any  moment  before,  in  all  the  four  hundred 
years  since  Louis  XII.  Down  to  the  reign  of  this  gallant 
king,  Paris  remained  very  much  what  it  had  been  since 
Charles  V.  and  the  English  wars,  a  vast  feudal  fortress  with 
walls,  moats,  gate-towers,  and  drawbridges,  immense  castles 
within  the  city  having  lofty  machicolated  towers,  narrow, 
winding,  gloomy  lanes,  and  one  or  two  bridges  crowded  with 
wooden  houses.  There  were  two  or  three  enormous  royal 


HISTORIC  PARIS  30$ 

castles,  on  the  scale  and  in  the  general  plan  of  the  Tower  of 
London,  an  almost  countless  number  of  beautiful  Gothic 
churches,  chapels,  and  oratories,  one  moderate-sized  open 
place,  the  Place  de  Greve,  and  two  or  three  very  small  and 
irregular  open  spaces,  such  as  the  Parvis  de  Notre  Dame  or 
the  Place  Maubert,  some  cemeteries,  markets,  and  fountains, 
of  a  kind  to  make  the  sanitary  reformer  shudder,  in  the  most 
densely  crowded  quarters ;  and  then,  all  over  the  packed  area 
within  the  walls,  rose  huge  fortresses  of  great  lords,  and  mo- 
nastic domains,  each  covering  many  acres  with  gardens, 
cemeteries,  halls,  and  sick-houses,  all  strongly  defended  by 
crenellated  towers,  portcullis,  and  bartizan.  A  miniature 
city  of  the  kind  may  still  be  seen  entire  in  some  of  the  remote 
mountain  districts  of  Italy  and  Germany. 

But  about  the  time  of  Louis  XII.,  and  early  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  the  Renascence  arose,  and  architecture  and  all  the 
habits  and  arts  of  modern  life  began  to  take  the  place  of  the 
mediaeval  life.  Castles  were  transmuted  into  palaces,  towers 
and  battlemented  walls  began  to  fall,  the  Italian  taste  for 
terraces,  colonnades,  domes,  and  square  courts  slowly  drove 
out  the  Gothic  fortress,  and  first  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  then 
the  original  part  of  the  Louvre,  then  the  Tuileries,  then  the 
Luxembourg,  arose  in  the  course  of  a  century ;  until,  in  the 
middle  of  the  seventeenth  century,  Louis  XIV.,  the  great 
destroyer,  builder,  transformer  of  Paris,  began  to  make  the 
city  something  h'ke  what  it  was  within  the  memory  of  living 
men.  But  during  the  two  hundred  years  that  separate 
Francois  I.  from  Louis  XIV.,  the  transformation  went  on 
very  gradually,  so  that  even  when  Henri  IV.  had  completed 
his  work  on  the  Louvre  and  the  Tuileries,  lofty  feudal  towers 
still  frowned  down  on  Palladian  palaces,  and  gigantic  mediae- 
val convents  or  fortresses  crowded  out  the  new  streets,  the 

Italian  hotels,  and  even  the  royal  mansions. 
x 


306  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

For  three  centuries  the  battle  raged  between  the  old  cas- 
tellated buildings  and  the  modern  palatial  style,  and  the 
result  was  a  strange  and  unsightly  confusion.  By  the  end  of 
the  last  century  Paris  had  almost  acquired  a  modern  aspect, 
but  Louis  XVI.,  and  then  Napoleon,  and  after  him  the 
Restoration,  undertook  new  works  on  a  vast  scale,  which 
none  of  them  ever  completed.  The  second  Empire,  in  1852, 
began  the  most  gigantic  and  ruthless  schemes  of  transforma- 
tion ever  attempted  in  any  great  city.  Mighty  boulevards 
were  driven  backwards  and  forwards  from  barrier  to  barrier ; 
whole  quarters  of  the  old  city  were  cleared ;  and  Haussmann 
ruled  supreme,  like  Satan  in  Pandemonium,  thirsting  for  new 
worlds  to  conquer,  and  resolute  to  storm  Heaven  itself.  The 
Empire  fell  in  the  great  war  of  1870,  whilst  many  of  these 
ambitious  schemes  were  half-finished,  and  whilst  Paris  was 
still  covered  with  the  dust  of  the  insatiable  demolisseur. 

After  the  war  of  1870  came  the  Commune  and  second  Siege 
of  Paris  in  1871 ;  and  in  this  perished  Tuileries  Palace,  Hotel 
de  Ville,  many  ministries  and  public  buildings,  with  whole 
streets  and  blocks  of  houses.  The  havoc  of  1871,  and  the 
gigantic  schemes  bequeathed  to  the  Republic  by  the  Empire, 
have  only  just  now  been  made  good,  after  some  twenty-three 
years  of  incessant  work.  Few  new  schemes  of  reconstruction 
have  been  undertaken  by  the  Republic,  which  has  had  enough 
to  do  to  repair  the  ravages  of  civil  war  and  to  complete  the 
grandiose  avenues  of  Haussmann.  The  result  is  that  Paris 
at  last  looks  like  a  city  finished  by  its  builders  —  and  built 
on  an  organic,  consistent,  harmonious,  and  modern  scheme. 
For  some  four  hundred  years  it  has  always  looked  more  or 
less  like  a  city  in  the  act  of  building,  or  in  course  of  trans- 
formation. 

Those  who  will  go  and  look  at  M.  HofFbauer's  ingenious 
panoramic  picture  of  Paris,  as  it  appeared  in  1588,  now  in  the 


HISTORIC   PARIS  307 

Mus£e  Carnavalet,  and  will  study  his  other  drawings  there, 
or  in  his  great  work,  Paris  a  iravers  les  ages,  who  will  follow 
out  the  series  of  contemporary  views  of  old  Paris  from  the 
sixteenth  to  the  nineteenth  centuries,  now  in  the  Municipal 
Museum,  may  easily  get  a  clear  idea  of  this  prolonged  and 
extraordinary  process  of  transformation,  by  which,  through- 
out Europe,  the  cities  of  the  mediaeval  world  very  slowly, 
and  bit  by  bit,  arrayed  themselves  in  the  forms  and  arts  of 
the  modern  world.  This  study  must  have  peculiar  interest 
for  American  travellers,  because  their  own  continent  presents 
them  with  hardly  any  examples  of  this  process.  Their  magnifi- 
cent cities  have  been  built  direct  from  the  prairie  with  modern 
conceptions  of  art  and  of  life,  and  with  no  other  conceptions. 
But  in  Europe  this  very  laborious  and  complex  evolution  has 
required  four  stormy  centuries  to  work  through.  Now  it  is 
true  that  the  mediaeval  plan,  type,  and  architecture  are  not 
so  visible  in  Paris  as  in  London,  Rouen,  Cologne,  Prague,  or 
Florence;  yet  in  Paris  the  modernisation  of  the  mediaeval 
plan  has  been  far  more  trenchant  and  is  more  instructive  to 
the  transatlantic  student. 

To  the  antiquarian  it  is  painful  to  reflect  how  many  beauti- 
ful and  historic  remnants  of  old  Paris  have  been  swept  away 
within  living  memory,  or  at  least  within  the  present  century. 
The  two  Empires  have  been  perhaps  the  most  cruel  enemies 
of  mediaeval  architecture.  In  M.  Guilhermy's  pleasant  book, 
Itineraire  Archeologique  de  Paris,  1855,  there  is  a  plan  of 
Paris  showing  the  ancient  monuments  by  Roguet,  in  which 
some  two  hundred  buildings,  anterior  to  Louis  XIV.,  are 
marked.  How  many  of  these  have  disappeared:  a  large 
proportion  of  them  since  1852  !  The  new  Boulevard  St. 
Germain  is  a  magnificent  thoroughfare ;  so  is  the  Boulevard 
St.  Michel,  and  the  Rue  Monge,  and  the  Rue  de  PEcole  de 
Medecine,  but  what  a  holocaust  of  old  churches  and  convents, 


308  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

historic  colleges,  refectories,  halls,  towers,  and  gateways,  has 
been  made  in  the  forming  them  !  What  exquisite  traceries  of 
the  thirteenth  century,  what  pathetic  ruins  of  statues  and 
portals,  have  been  carted  away  to  make  a  Boulevard  de  Sebas- 
topol,  a  Rue  de  Rivoli,  and  the  new  edifices  in  the  island  cite ! 
In  my  own  memory,  St.  Jean,  St.  Benoit,  the  Bernardins,  the 
College  de  Beauvais,  have  gone,  and  the  tower  of  St.  Jacques, 
and  the  facade  of  Notre  Dame,  have  been  "restored"  out  of 
all  knowledge.  It  is  quite  true  that  Paris  required  new  streets, 
new  halls,  new  colleges,  hospitals,  barracks,  and  open  spaces. 
These  had  to  be ;  but  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  demolisseur 
has  been  a  little  rough  and  unsympathetic. 

It  is  an  idle  occupation  for  the  aesthetic  foreigner  to  grumble 
when  he  knows  nothing  of  the  practical  necessities  and  the 
everyday  facts  which  are  thrust  into  the  face  of  the  inhabitant. 
A  much  more  sensible  line  is  open  to  the  tourist  to-day,  if  he 
will  try  and  find  out  for  himself  what  still  remains  to  be  seen. 
Not  one  traveller  in  a  hundred  ever  goes  near  the  beautiful 
Hotel  Carnavalet  or  has  explored  all  the  vaults,  traceries, 
and  columns  of  the  Conciergerie,  or  has  unearthed  that 
curious  and  noble  fragment  of  the  twelfth  century,  the  Church 
of  St.  Julien  le  Pauvre,  formerly  attached  to  the  H6tel  Dieu, 
and  now  buried  in  some  back  streets.  It  may  compare  with 
the  Chapel  of  St.  John  in  our  Tower  of  London,  though  it  is 
somewhat  later  in  date.  Few  care  to  search  for  the  Hotel  de 
Sens,  and  the  old  staircase  and  tower  of  the  Hotel  de  Bour- 
gogne.  Fragments  of  two  famous  convents  remain  embedded 
in  modern  structures.  The  Conservatoire  des  Arts  et  Metiers, 
in  the  Rue  St.  Martin,  occupies  the  site  of  the  venerable  and 
vast  abbey  of  St.  Martin  des  Champs ;  and  it  has  incorporated 
within  its  immense  range  of  buildings  both  the  church  and  the 
Refectory  of  the  Abbey,  beautiful  remains  of  the  best  thir- 
teenth-century work.  And  so  the  Refectory  of  the  Cordeliers 


HISTORIC   PARIS  309 

monks,  the  scene  of  the  Cordelier  Club  in  the  Revolution, 
which  has  rung  with  the  big  voice  of  Danton  and  the  eager 
periods  of  Camille  Desmoulins,  is  still  visible  as  the  Musee 
Dupuytren,  attached  to  the  Ecole  de  Medecine.  Its  grue- 
some contents  need  not  deter  men  from  visiting  one  of  the 
most  interesting  historical  remains  in  Paris. 

A  real  history  of  the  city  of  Paris  would  prove  to  be  one 
of  the  most  instructive  episodes  to  which  the  student  of 
manners  and  art  in  Europe  from  the  time  of  the  Crusades 
could  possibly  devote  his  attention.  And  although  some 
cities  in  Italy  present  more  vivid  and  fascinating  periods  or 
examples,  there  is  perhaps  no  other  city  in  Europe  where  the 
continuity  of  modern  civilisation  for  at  least  seven  centuries 
can  be  traced  so  fully  in  its  visible  record.  From  the  time  of 
Louis  the  Stout,  A.D.  1108,  Paris  has  been  the  rich  and  power- 
ful metropolis  of  a  rich  and  enlarging  State ;  and  from  that 
day  to  this  there  is  hardly  a  single  decade  which  has  not  left 
some  fragment  or  other  of  its  work  for  our  eyes.  The  history 
of  each  of  its  great  foundations,  civil  and  ecclesiastical,  would 
fill  a  volume,  and  indeed  almost  every  one  of  them  has  had 
many  volumes  devoted  to  its  gradual  development,  final  dis- 
appearance, or  transformation  to  modern  uses. 

The  history  of  the  Cathedral  of  N6tre  Dame,  from  the 
laying  of  the  first  stone  by  Pope  Alexander  III.,  in  the  age 
of  our  Henry  II.  and  Becket,  down  to  the  final  "restoration" 
by  M.  Viollet-le-Duc,  and  the  history  of  all  its  annexes  and 
dependences,  Archeveche,  Hotel  Dieu,  together  with  an  exact 
account  of  all  its  carvings,  glass,  reliefs,  etc.,  etc.,  would  be  a 
history  of  art  in  itself.  The  same  would  be  true  if  one 
followed  out  the  history  of  the  foundations  of  St.  Germain 
des  Pres,  of  St.  Victor,  of  St.  Martin  des  Champs,  of  the 
Temple,  and  of  St.  Genevieve.  Two  or  three  of  these  enor- 
mous domains  would  together  occupy  a  space  equal  to  the 


310  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

whole  area  of  the  original  cite.  They  contained  magnificent 
churches,  halls,  libraries,  refectories,  and  other  buildings,  and 
down  to  the  last  century  were  more  or  less  in  a  state  of  fair 
preservation  or  active  existence.  Of  them  all  it  seems  that 
St.  Victor,  on  the  site  of  the  Halle  aux  Vins,  and  the  Temple, 
on  the  site  of  the  square  of  that  name,  have  entirely  disap- 
peared. But  of  the  others  interesting  parts  still  remain.  Of 
the  eleven  great  abbeys  and  twenty  minor  convents  which 
Paris  still  had  at  the  Revolution  none  remain  complete,  and 
the  great  majority  have  left  nothing  but  names  for  the  new 
streets. 

It  would  be  no  less  instructive  to  follow  up  the  history  of 
the  great  civil  edifices,  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  the  Louvre,  the 
Tuileries,  the  Hotel  de  Cluny,  the  Luxembourg,  the  Palais 
Royal,  the  Palais  de  Justice.  Of  these,  of  course  the  most 
notable  are  the  transformation  and  gradual  enlargement  of 
the  Hotel  de  Ville,  the  Louvre  and  Tuileries,  and  the  Palais 
de  Justice,  including  in  that  the  Conciergerie  and  all  the  sub- 
ordinate buildings  of  the  old  Palace  of  the  Kings,  which 
occupied  the  western  end  of  the  original  island  cite.  The 
learning,  the  ingenuity,  the  art,  which  have  gone  to  build  up 
the  Hotel  de  Ville  of  to-day  out  of  the  exquisite  pavilion  that 
was  designed  under  Francois  I.,  form  a  real  chapter  in  the 
history  of  European  architecture;  as  the  story  of  the  Town 
Hall  for  nearly  four  centuries  is  the  heart  of  the  history  of 
Paris.  But  even  this  is  surpassed  by  the  history  of  the  Louvre 
and  its  final  consolidation  with  the  Tuileries,  an  operation  of 
which  the  difficulties  were  much  less  successfully  overcome. 
The  entire  mass  of  buildings,  the  most  elaborate  and  am- 
bitious of  modern  construction  in  Europe,  is  an  extraordinary 
tour  de  force  which  provokes  incessant  study,  even  when  it 
fails  to  satisfy  very  critical  examination. 

Those  of  us  who  can  remember  Paris  before  the  second 


HISTORIC   PARIS  31! 

Empire  of  1852  have  seen  not  a  few  quarters  of  the  city  much 
in  the  state  in  which  they  were  at  the  Revolution,  and  even 
in  the  days  of  the  Grand  Monarque.  The  sky-line  was 
infinitely  broken  and  varied,  instead  of  being  a  geometric 
and  uniform  line  of  cornice,  as  we  now  for  the  most  part 
observe  it.  And  the  streets  had  a  frontage-line  as  irregular 
as  the  sky-line ;  they  went  meandering  about  or  gently  sway- 
ing to  and  fro,  in  a  highly  picturesque  and  inconvenient  way. 
There  was  hardly  a  single  street  with  a  strictly  geometric 
straight  line  in  all  Paris  down  to  the  first  Empire.  Now  the 
ground  plan  of  Paris  looks  as  if  an  autocrat  had  laid  it  out 
in  equal  parallelograms  from  an  open  plain.  What  old  Paris 
was  down  to  the  end  of  the  last  century  we  may  gather  from 
bits  of  Silvestre,  Chastillon,  Meryon,  Martial,  Gavarni,  and 
others ;  but  not  much  of  it  can  still  be  seen  extant. 

If  the  curious  traveller  would  follow  up  the  Rue  St.  Denis 
or  the  Rue  St.  Martin,  two  of  the  oldest  streets  in  Europe, 
from  their  intersection  by  the  Rue  de  Rivoli  to  the  circular 
boulevard,  where  they  are  terminated  by  the  Porte  St.  Denis 
and  the  Porte  St.  Martin  respectively,  he  would  get  some  idea 
of  the  look  of  Paris  at  the  Revolution  of  1789.  The  grand 
new  Boulevard  de  Sebastopol,  one  of  Haussmann's  boldest, 
and  perhaps  most  useful,  creations,  opens  a  vast  thoroughfare 
between  the  old  streets  of  St.  Denis  and  St.  Martin,  and  by 
diverting  the  traffic,  has  no  doubt  prevented  or  delayed  their 
transformation.  Hence  these  two  streets,  which  date  from 
the  earliest  age  of  the  city,  have  partially  retained  their 
original  lines,  when  they  were  country  lanes  through  woods 
and  meadows,  and  to  some  extent  they  keep  their  old  sky- 
line and  facade.  There  are  corners  in  them  still  where  the 
old  street  aspect  of  Paris  may  be  seen  almost  intact.  And 
the  student  of  antiquities  who  cared  to  follow  up  the  remnants 
of  these  mediaeval  thoroughfares  in  the  spirit  in  which  he 


312  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

explores  the  canals  of  Venice  and  the  vicoli  of  Florence,  who 
would  trace  back  the  history  of  St.  Jacques  and  St.  Merri, 
St.  Leu,  St.  Nicolas  des  Champs,  the  Place  des  Innocents, 
and  the  vast  convent  of  St.  Martin,  all  of  which  he  would 
meet  in  his  walk,  would  have  a  most  suggestive  insight  into 
the  mediaeval  state  of  the  city.  And  it  would  be  well  to  add 
to  the  walk  by  following  up  such  streets  as  those  of  Rue 
Vieille  du  Temple,  Rue  des  Francs  Bourgeois,  and  its  collateral 
streets,  with  the  Hotels  Barbette,  de  Bethune,  de  Soubise,  and 
Carnavalet,  ending  with  the  old  Place  Royale.  A  few  days 
thus  spent,  with  adequate  histories  such  as  those  of  Guil- 
hermy,  Fournier,  Viollet-le-Duc,  Dulaure,  Hamerton,  Lacroix, 
Hoffbauer,  or  the  popular  guides  of  Miss  Beale,  Hare,  or 
Joanne,  would  be  rewarded  by  pleasure  and  instruction. 

To  the  thoughtful  traveller  the  question  is  continually 
presenting  itself,  if  the  wonderful  transformation  which  Paris 
has  undergone  in  three  centuries,  and  especially  in  the  last 
half  of  the  present  century,  has  been  a  success  on  the  balance 
of  loss  and  gain ;  if  it  might  have  been  better  done ;  if  it  could 
not  have  been  done  without  such  evident  signs  of  autocratic 
imperialism  and  gigantic  jobbery.  The  enthusiastic  admirers 
of  Paris  as  it  is,  and  the  irreconcilable  mourners  over  Paris 
as  it  was,  are  alike  somewhat  unreasonable.  One  need 
hardly  waste  a  thought  upon  the  triflers  to  whom  the  great 
city  is  a  mere  centre  of  luxury,  excitement,  and  pleasure, 
given  up  to  clothes,  food,  and  spectacles.  But  the  superior 
spirits  whom  the  modernisation  of  Paris  in  the  present  cen- 
tury afflicts  or  disgusts  are  hardly  less  open  to  a  charge  of 
impracticable  pedantry.  The  Revolution  found  Paris  as  un- 
wholesome, as  inconvenient,  as  ill-ordered,  as  obsolete,  as 
inorganic  a  survival  from  mediaeval  confusion  as  any  city  in 
Europe.  It  boasts  to-day  that  it  is  the  most  brilliant,  the 
best  ordered,  the  most  artistic  city  of  men,  and  one  of  the 


HISTORIC   PARIS  313 

most  sanitary  and  convenient  for  civilised  life.  And  no 
reasonable  man  can  deny  that  the  substantial  part  of  this 
boast  is  just. 

The  primary  business  of  great  cities  is  to  be  centres  where 
masses  of  men  can  live  healthy  and  pleasant  lives,  where  their 
day's  work  can  be  carried  on  with  the  minimum  of  waste  and 
friction,  and  where  their  spirits  may  be  constantly  stirred  by 
grand  and  ennobling  monuments.  Now  a  mediaeval  city, 
though  crowded  with  beautiful  and  impressive  objects  at 
every  corner,  was  charged  with  disease,  discomfort,  and  im- 
pediments. It  choked  and  oppressed  men's  daily  life  to  such 
a  point  that,  about  the  sixteenth  century,  a  violent  reaction 
against  the  mediaeval  type  set  in.  And  when  this  began  the 
civil  and  religious  institutions  of  the  middle  ages  had  fallen 
into  decay,  had  ceased  to  be  of  use  or  to  command  respect, 
whilst  their  ruins  or  their  disfigured  carcases  encumbered  the 
ground.  The  Monarchy  led  the  way  in  the  revolt  and  the 
inauguration  of  the  new  city ;  and  the  Revolution  and  the 
Empire  added  to  the  work  of  destruction  and  renovation  with 
tremendous  rapidity  and  resistless  force.  If  modern  French- 
men were  to  live  in  Paris,  to  feel  at  home  in  it,  to  love  it, 
then  the  transformation  must  take  place.  And  one  cannot 
deny  that  it  has  been  done  with  consummate  energy,  skill, 
and  artistic  invention. 

But  a  city  which  deliberately  effaces  its  own  past,  which 
mutilates  its  ancient  masterpieces,  and  carts  away  exquisite 
works  of  art  wholesale,  which  is  filled  with  hatred,  not  only 
of  what  is  unwholesome  and  troublesome,  but  of  what  is 
venerable  and  ancient,  is  committing  suicide  of  its  own  noblest 
traditions.  It  is  sacrificing  the  most  powerful  influences  it 
possesses  to  kindle  that  sense  of  its  own  dignity  and  love  for 
its  own  history,  which  is  really  the  basis  of  all  civic  patriotism. 
A  great  city  which  has  no  past  must  do  its  best  to  look  modern. 


314  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

But  an  ancient  city  which  deliberately  seeks  to  appear  as  if  it 
had  not  known  more  than  two  generations  of  inhabitants  is 
depriving  itself  of  its  own  noblest  title  to  respect.  Now,  too 
much  of  modern  Paris  looks  as  if  its  principal  object  had 
been  to  hide  away  old  Paris,  as  some  mischievous  remnant 
of  the  Ancien  Regime,  unworthy  to  exist  in  the  nineteenth 
century.  It  is  true  that  Notre  Dame,  the  Sainte  Chapelle, 
St.  Germain,  and  a  few  remnants  of  Gothic  art  have  been 
"  restored."  But  one  of  the  leading  ideas  of  the  Haussmannic 
renovation  has  evidently  been  this  —  to  produce  the  effect  of 
a  brand-new  city  as  completely  "up  to  date"  and  with  as 
little  of  the  antique  about  it  as  San  Francisco  or  Chicago. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that,  however  gay,  airy,  spacious,  and 
convenient  are  the  new  boulevards,  they  have  been  immensely 
overdone  in  numbers,  and  are  now  become  a  new  source  of 
monotony  in  themselves.  We  see  that,  at  last,  boulevard- 
constructing  became  a  trade ;  these  vast  avenues  were  made 
first  and  foremost  for  speculative  builders,  -enterprising  trades- 
men, and  ambitious  architects.  It  is  not  so  much  that  Paris 
needed  the  boulevards,  as  that  certain  syndicates  thirsted  for 
the  job.  Assuming  that  such  main  arteries  as  the  Boulevards 
de  Sebastopol  and  St.  Michel,  such  streets  as  the  R.  de  Rivoli, 
4  Septembre,  and  Turbigo  were  indispensable,  it  does  not 
appear  certain  that  the  Boulevards  Haussmann  or  St.  Ger- 
main were  inevitable,  or  even  the  latest  of  all,  the  Avenue  de 
TOpera.  These  streets  are  convenient,  of  course,  very  "  hand- 
some," and  profitable  to  those  who  knew  how  to  profit  by 
them ;  but  the  question  is  whether  they  were  worth  the  enor- 
mous burdens  on  the  city  budget,  the  tremendous  disturbance 
and  destruction  involved,  and  the  wholesale  demolition  of 
interesting  old  structures  which  could  never  be  replaced.  As 
the  royal  and  imperial  palaces  of  Paris  bear  on  them  indelible 
marks  of  autocratic  tyranny  and  pride,  so  the  new  municipal 


HISTORIC  PARIS  315 

works  of  the  city  too  often  betray  their  origin  in  the  syndicates 
of  the  Bourse  and  Municipal  Council. 

It  seems  to  be  a  natural  law  that  an  evil  moral  taint  in  the 
constructors  of  great  buildings  or  great  cities  shows  itself  on 
the  face  of  them  for  ever,  just  as  it  is  impossible  to  study  the 
facade  of  a  mediaeval  cathedral  without  seeing  by  what  devout 
spirits  and  by  what  faithful  and  honest  labour  it  was  raised. 
The  domineering  and  inflated  temper  of  a  great  autocrat 
breaks  out  in  the  monotony  and  rigidity  of  his  palaces,  and 
in  his  manifest  desire  to  display  power  rather  than  life,  and 
vastness  rather  than  beauty.  The  palace  of  a  tyrant  is  made 
to  look  like  an  interminable  line  of  troops  in  uniform  mechani- 
cally dressed  for  a  review.  The  master  of  big  battalions  must 
have  a  big  palace,  and  then  a  bigger  palace,  a  copy  and  an 
extension  of  the  former  one.  If  his  predecessor  built  a 
beautiful  palace  he  must  crush  it  with  something  that  dwarfs 
and  overpowers  it,  for  is  he  not  an  even  grander  potentate 
than  the  " grand  -monarque "  deceased?  The  Louvre  is  a 
perfect  study  in  stone  of  moral  degeneration  on  the  throne. 
Francois  I.,  who,  with  all  his  faults,  loved  France  and  loved 
beauty,  began  the  Italianised  Louvre  of  Pierre  Lescot :  it  is 
one  of  the  most  lovely  conceptions  of  the  Renascence,  and 
has  no  superior  of  its  order  hi  Europe.  We  see  it  hi  the  south- 
western angle  of  the  inner  quadrangle.  The  inner  quad- 
rangle was  not  completed  for  more  than  a  hundred  years  — 
each  king  caring  more  for  power  than  he  did  for  art,  and 
adding  a  less  and  less  beautiful  piece;  until  at  last,  under 
Louis  XIV.,  the  exquisite  design  of  the  early  Renascence  has 
sunk  into  a  dull  and  pompous  classicalism. 

But  the  crown  of  false  taste  was  placed  when,  in  1665, 
Louis  XIV.  was  seduced  by  the  ingenious  amateur,  Dr. 
Perrault,  to  reface  the  Louvre  of  Levau,  and  to  set  up  the 
huge  sham  screen,  known  as  the  famous  Colonnade,  on  the 


316  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

eastern  facade  facing  St.  Germain  1'Auxerrois.  Its  twenty- 
eight  immense  Corinthian  columns,  carrying  nothing  but  a 
common  balustrade,  are  a  monument  of  imbecile  pomp. 
Directly  the  trained  eye  perceives  that  this  vast  and  stately 
facade  consists  of  two  parallel  faces  within  a  few  feet  of  each 
other,  the  mind  turns  from  such  a  senseless  parade  of  magnifi- 
cence. It  is  quite  true  that  the  facade  is  itself  very  imposing, 
well-proportioned,  and  certain  to  impress  itself  as  noble  on 
those  who  do  not  perceive  its  fraudulent  construction.  It 
was  just  the  thing  to  inflame  the  imagination  of  the  brilliant 
young  Roi-Soleil :  it  debauched  the  courtly  taste  and  ruined 
the  architecture  of  Paris.  It  was  more  or  less  imitated  in  the 
grand  public  offices  flanking  the  Rue  Royale,  which  face 
the  Place  de  la  Concorde.  Thenceforward  splendour  took 
the  place  of  grace ;  and  interminable  orders  of  columns  and 
windows  in  long  regiments  took  the  place  of  art. 

The  first  Empire,  which  had  a  genius  of  its  own,  and  even 
an  imitated  art  that  at  times  was  pleasing  and  usually  intel- 
lectual, adopted  and  even  exaggerated  the  passion  of  the 
Grand  Monarque  for  the  grandiose  and  the  uniform.  And 
the  second  Empire,  which  had  more  ambition  than  genius, 
and  more  brilliancy  than  taste,  adopted  and  even  exaggerated 
the  designs  of  the  first  Napoleon  —  but  alas !  without  the 
refined  learning  and  the  massive  dignity  which  marked  his 
best  work.  Louis,  accordingly,  mauled  about  the  old  Louvre 
and  set  up  some  singularly  ingenious  but  rather  inartistic 
adjuncts  to  the  Tuileries.  He  made  the  disastrous  mistake 
of  prolonging  the  Rue  de  Rivoli  with  a  monotonous  rigidity 
which  has  positively  discredited  French  taste  in  the  eyes  of 
all  Europe.  He  insisted  on  sweeping  away  the  old  cite  of  the 
island,  in  order  to  make  sites  for  the  enormous  barrack  and 
the  vast  hospital  —  neither  of  which  would  be  required  on 
that  particular  spot  by  a  wisely  organised  Government. 


HISTORIC  PARIS  317 

Nor  did  Louis  stop  here;  for  his  courtly,  clerical,  and 
Bourse  influences  drove  him  to  turn  the  Cathedral  of  Notre 
Dame  into  a  detached  show,  standing  by  itself  in  a  bare 
clearing,  to  set  up  more  boulevards,  more  monotonous  Rues 
de  Rivoli  in  every  part,  and  to  gut  the  interesting  old  quarter 
of  the  University,  the  Schools,  and  Colleges,  teeming  with 
historical  associations  and  mediaeval  relics,  in  order  to  make 
it  as  close  a  copy  of  the  Boulevard  des  Italiens  as  it  was  pos- 
sible to  produce  on  the  south  side  of  the  Seine.  Even  more 
than  all  the  sovereigns  of  France,  from  Louis  XIV.  down- 
wards, Louis  Napoleon  seemed  bent  on  hiding  away  or  cart- 
ing away  the  ancient  Paris,  and  turning  the  whole  of  the  vast 
and  venerable  city  into  a  monotonous  copy  of  the  Anglo- 
American  quarter  round  the  Madeleine  and  the  Grand 
Opera. 

The  Republic  succeeded  in  1870  to  a  number  of  unfinished 
schemes  and  to  the  awful  ravages  of  civil  war.  And,  after 
almost  a  quarter  of  a  century  of  indefatigable  effort,  it  has 
at  length  brought  the  reorganisation  of  the  city  to  a  practical 
close  and  has  repaired  the  ruin  of  the  two  sieges.  Happily, 
the  Republic,  with  such  fearful  trials  and  cruel  lessons,  has 
had  no  desire  to  plan  new  schemes  for  eviscerating  the  city, 
and  has  had  other  things  to  do  instead  of  building  pompous 
palaces.  It  has  wisely  declined  to  rebuild  the  Tuileries,  and 
has  made  perhaps  the  best  that  it  could  have  made  of  the 
vast  constructions  that  connected  Louvre  and  Tuileries.  In 
spite  of  the  ambitious  and  offensive  failure  in  the  midst  —  the 
noisy  monument  to  a  great  patriot  who  deserved  something 
nobler  —  the  palatial  pile  has  not  been  surpassed  in  modern 
Europe ;  and  by  cosnent  of  the  world  the  spacious  area  be- 
tween the  Champs-Elyse'es  and  the  Pont  Neuf  contains  the 
most  brilliant  city  prospect  in  Northern  Europe.  But  the 
glory  of  the  Republic  is  the  renewed  Hotel  de  Ville,  the  most 


318  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

beautiful  building  that  has  been  raised  in  Paris  since  the 
original  Louvre  of  Pierre  Lescot.  The  trade  of  the  building 
speculator  and  the  mania  of  a  despotic  uniformity  have  now 
received  a  death-blow.  The  ingenuity  and  artistic  instinct 
of  France  are  acquiring  again  a  free  hand ;  the  Revolutionary 
hatred  of  antiquity  is  dying  out,  and  the  historic  spirit  is  en- 
larging its  scope.  When  the  Eiffel  folly  has  come  down,  and 
the  mesquinerie  and  chinoiserie  of  sundry  big  works  of  the 
fin  de  siecle  have  been  replaced,  Paris  may  face  the  twentieth 
century  with  the  proud  consciousness  not  only  of  being  the 
most  brilliant  and  pleasant  of  cities,  but  also  that  she  bears  on 
her  the  record  of  twenty  memorable  centuries  of  the  Past. 


OUR   CATHEDRALS 

1895 

I  SHOULD  like  to  support  the  plea  for  some  national  control 
over  local  Restoration  Committees  by  my  own  reminiscences 
of  French  cathedrals  and  the  cruel  mangling  they  have  suffered 
in  the  last  forty-five  years.  I  am  old  enough  to  remember 
some  of  the  noblest  of  them  before  the  advent  of  Napoleon 
III.  in  1851.  One  of  the  disasters  of  the  third  Empire  was 
the  buying  the  support  of  the  Church  by  enabling  it  to 
"restore"  the  cathedrals  and  churches  of  the  middle  ages. 
The  result  has  been  to  ruin,  disguise,  and  travesty  almost 
every  fragment  of  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  century  work 
throughout  France.  To  those  who  knew  the  great  cathedrals 
of  France,  before  the  murderous  hand  of  the  restorer  had  been 
at  work  on  them,  they  look  like  that  ghastly  picture  of  Murillo 
—  "St.  Bonaventura  writing  the  Memoirs  of  St.  Francis  after 
his  own  death."  The  Seraphic  Doctor  is  a  corpse,  who  sits 
stiffly  in  his  chair,  holding  the  pen  in  his  blue-cold  fingers 
and  tracing  the  words  with  his  mummy-like  limbs.  The 
seraphic  churches  of  mediaeval  France  are  to-day  such  corpses, 
"restored"  to  life  for  a  space,  and  pretending  to  be  alive  with 
a  rigid  mockery  of  health.  Men  might  as  well  drag  from 
their  graves  Robert  de  Luzarches  and  Pierre  de  Montereau, 
and  show  us  their  skeletons  adorned  with  brand-new  robes 
designed  by  a  learned  antiquarian  as  present  to  us  their 
churches  transformed  into  modern  machine-cut  stone. 

I  can  remember  the  profound  impression  produced  on  me 


320 


MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 


as  a  school-boy  when  I  first  saw  the  great  buildings  of  Rouen 
and  the  churches  and  castles  of  Normandy  and  along  the 
Seine  in  the  distant  days  of  Louis  Philippe  fifty  years  ago. 
What  the  cathedral  of  Rouen  was  then  may  be  faintly  im- 
agined by  those  who  know  the  fragments  of  it  which  Ruskin 
drew  for  his  "Seven  Lamps."  It  was  a  mountain  of  crum- 
bling and  pathetic  imagery  which  perhaps  in  all  those  cen- 
turies had  never  looked  so  truly  grand  and  produced  so  deep 
an  impression.  Time  and  decay  had  amalgamated  the  styles 
and  harmonised  all  that  was  incongruous  or  corrupt.  One 
after  another  almost  every  great  church  in  the  pointed  style 
throughout  France  has  undergone  the  same  transformation, 
until  now  it  is  rather  their  skeletons  or  their  mummies  which 
remain,  and  not  the  living  work  of  the  great  mediaeval  artists. 
No  man  now  dreams  of  "restoring"  —  i.e.  repainting  —  a 
famous  picture,  or  an  antique  statue,  or  the  lost  books  of  a 
great  poem;  nor  of  bringing  the  Twelfth  Mass  up  to  date. 
Nobody  proposes  to  "restore"  the  Parthenon,  or  to  put  a  new 
nose  on  the  Sphinx,  or  new  arms  to  the  Melian  Aphrodite, 
and  it  would  be  absurd  to  talk  of  "restoring"  the  Colosseum 
with  strict  attention  to  the  Flavian  "period,"  or  the  Pantheon 
according  to  the  canons  of  Vitruvius.  But  a  church  is  con- 
sidered fair  game  for  all  ecclesiastical  personages  of  aesthetic 
proclivities,  and  every  type  of  local  busybody,  "munificent 
donor,"  or  archaeological  prig.  They  revel  in  it.  They  fall 
upon  the  poor  crumbling  ruin  like  vultures  on  a  dying  camel 
in  the  desert.  They  form  rival  committees  and  bitter  cliques 
about  it;  they  wrangle,  sneer,  and  foam  at  the  mouth  in 
savage  pamphlets  and  letters  to  the  Press.  We  know  how 
all  aesthetic  persons  of  leisure  and  culture  interpret  the  great 
motto  —  de  gustibus  est  disputandum ;  and  we  all  know  that 
there  are  no  controversies  so  ferocious  as  those  of  the  odium 
theologicum.  But  the  "restoration"  of  a  church  combines 


OUR   CATHEDRALS  321 

the  ferocity  of  the  aesthete  with  that  of  the  theologian,  and  the 
poor  corpus  vile  of  mediaeval  sculpture  has  to  suffer  the  knives 
of  a  double  army  of  vivisectionists. 

The  Church  cannot  be  safely  entrusted  with  the  sole  care 
of  the  great  remnants  of  mediaeval  architecture.  The  clergy 
are  their  most  dangerous  destroyers.  And  the  example  of 
France,  where  the  Church  has  had  a  free  hand,  is  really 
decisive.  Not,  of  course,  that  clergymen  are  either  indif- 
ferent to  the  state  of  their  churches,  or  have  any  wish  to  injure 
them.  Quite  the  contrary.  It  is  that  trap  de  zele  which  is  so 
mischievous  in  diplomacy  and  in  archaeology.  The  clergy 
very  naturally  wish  to  see  their  churches  look  smart,  new, 
zealously  cared  for,  and  handsomely  furnished.  To  the  clergy 
the  church  is  a  place  for  daily  worship,  preaching,  and  teach- 
ing, and  it  is  as  natural  for  the  rector  to  like  a  "bright" 
church  as  to  like  a  bright  rectory  house  and  garden.  But 
to  the  mass  of  the  public  these  ancient  churches  are  primarily 
public  monuments,  sacred  relics,  national  glories ;  and  it  is  of 
infinitely  more  moment  to  the  great  public  to  preserve  their 
ancient  sanctity  in  its  original  truth  (even  in  decay)  than  it 
is  to  have  them  warm,  comfortable,  bright,  and  spick-and-span. 
The  clergy,  hi  their  natural  and  almost  excusable  zeal  to 
show  the  people  that  Anglicanism  is  very  much  alive,  active, 
cultured,  and  up-to-date,  have  really  ruined  and  mauled 
almost  every  fine  old  qhurch  in  this  country  with  their  con- 
tractors' machine  mason  work,  their  horrid  Birmingham 
mediaevalisms,  and  all  the  intensely  pointed  (and  silly)  gim- 
crackery  which  is  thought  to  bring  down  the  peculiar  blessing 
of  Heaven. 

The  rectors  and  munificent  squires  have  ruined  our  churches. 
But  the  Dean  and  Chapter  have  not  yet  ruined  our  cathedrals 
—  or  not  all  of  them.  And  I  see  no  chance  of  saving  our 
English  cathedrals  from  the  catholic  vandalism  which  has 


322  MEMORIES   AND    THOUGHTS 

ruined  the  French,  except  by  placing  them  under  a  national 
administration  with  strictly  limited  funds,  and  legislative 
restriction  to  preserve,  but  never  to  restore,  to  shore  up  build- 
ings which  are  actually  falling,  to  replace  plain  stone  where 
it  is  inevitable,  but  never  under  any  pretext  to  copy,  imitate, 
or  modify  ornamental  work.  That  is  to  say,  to  keep  old 
work  of  all  kinds  from  falling  to  pieces  if  possible,  but  never 
to  try  and  replace  old  carving  by  new,  or  make  a  mediaeval 
edifice  look  as  if  it  had  been  finished  in  our  own  generation, 

As  to  replacing  old  figures  by  new,  they  might  as  well  tell 
us  that  the  plaster  cast  of  the  "Hermes"  of  Praxiteles  hi  the 
British  Museum  is  quite  as  good  a  statue  as  the  original  at 
Olympia  —  I  dare  say  they  will  tell  us  that  it  is  better,  for  it 
is  not  so  dingy,  and  altogether  "smarter."  I  have  no  doubt 
that  a  servant-girl  going  out  for  her  Sunday  walk  with  her 
young  man  thinks  herself  much  "smarter"  in  Mr.  Whiteley's 
clean  net  veil  at  nfd.  than  she  would  be  in  her  mistress's 
real  Venice  point  collar  which  has  been  exhibited  at  the  New 
Gallery,  and  looks  "as  if  it  had  been  dipped  in  coffee,"  says 
Mary  Jane.  And  perhaps  the  parsons  think  their  new  church 
looks  "smarter"  than  anything  the  fourteenth  century  could 
turn  out  —  especially  as  they  have  got  to  pay  for  their  last 
"spring  cleaning." 

But  I  have  a  practical  suggestion  to  make.  When  an  old 
building  gets  shaky  call  in  an  engineer  —  not  an  architect. 
Let  no  architect  offer  an  opinion,  touch  it,  or  come  near  it. 
An  architect  will  naturally  want  to  renew.  We  don't  want 
any  renewing  —  we  want  preservation.  An  architect  will 
have  "taste,"  "ideas  of  beauty,"  and,  above  all,  theories 
about  "epochs"  and  "styles."  Now  we  don't  want  taste  or 
epochs  or  styles  —  not  even  if  the  eminent  F.R.I.B.A.  were 
Sir  Christopher  Wren,  Ictinus,  and  Anthemius  of  Tralles  all 
in  one.  We  want  nothing  but  the  building  as  it  is,  the  stoncr> 


OUR   CATHEDRALS  323 

as  they  are,  the  carvings  as  time  has  left  them  —  scarred, 
blurred,  worn  to  mere  blocks  it  may  be,  but  the  original 
stones  as  ages  have  made  them.  All  we  want  is  to  keep 
them  together,  to  prop  them  up,  to  prevent  their  falling  — 
nothing  else.  This  is  often  an  exceedingly  difficult  job,  re- 
quiring all  the  delicacy  of  an  American  dentist  saving  an  old 
tooth,  and  all  the  ingenuity  that  goes  to  make  a  railway- 
bridge.  But  it  is  the  task  of  the  Engineer,  not  of  the  Archi- 
tect. 

It  is  not  a  question  of  Art ;  it  is  a  question  of  mechanical 
skill.  An  artist  is  out  of  place ;  is  worse  than  de  trop ;  he  is 
the  most  dangerous  man  you  could  consult.  He  wants  to 
be  trying  "variations"  on  the  old  blocks,  just  as  ambitious 
fiddlers  want  to  show  off  their  own  variations  on  the  Carnival 
de  Venise.  I  remember  a  famous  poet,  who  could  often  use 
strong  language,  noticing  how  a  beautiful  English  girl,  just 
arrived  in  Florence,  was  stared  at  by  a  notorious  old  flower- 
woman,  whose  reputation  for  intrigue  was  evil.  "Why!" 
cried  our  poet,  "  she  looks  at  the  girl  as  a  butcher  stares  at  a 
calf!"  Well,  I  say,  the  architect  who  respects  himself  looks 
at  a  Gothic  building  in  bad  repair  "as  a  butcher  stares  at  a 
calf."  He  is  quite  right;  his  trade  is  butchering,  and  to 
serve  the  gentry  with  the  best  new  meat.  He  sees  all  the  mis- 
takes made  by  Wren  or  Gibbs  two  centuries  ago ;  he  knows 
what  the  old  thirteenth-century  masonry  really  meant  —  or 
ought  to  have  meant.  And  as  he  gazes  wistfully  at  the  beauti- 
ful old  wreck  —  he  sees  what  lovely  veal  the  calf  will  make. 

There  is  no  paradox  in  my  maxim  that  the  work  is  that  of 
an  engineer,  that  an  artist  is  out  of  place.  It  is  not  an  affair 
of  art  —  it  is  an  affair  of  mechanics,  if  we  honestly  mean 
conservation  —  not  renovation.  Take  any  kindred  matter. 
Suppose  that  Nelson's  coat  were  tumbling  to  pieces  —  should 
we  give  it  to  a  Court  tailor  to  "renovate,"  or  to  a  mere  work- 


324 


MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 


man  to  dam?  If  we  gave  it  to  a  Court  tailor,  he  would 
furbish  it  up  with  new  facings  and  fresh  gold  lace,  as  if  it 
were  going  to  be  worn  at  the  next  leve'e.  If  we  heard  that 
Domesday  Book  were  falling  to  fragments,  should  we  hand 
it  over  to  Lord  Acton  to  repair,  with  instructions  "to  bring 
it  up  to  date,"  or  would  the  sacred  leaves  be  handed  over  to 
a  mere  palaeographic  expert?  If  Raffaelle's  cartoons  were 
coming  to  bits  in  strips  and  rents,  should  we  call  in  Sir  Everett 
Millais  and  beg  him  to  repaint  the  damaged  parts?  No ;  we 
should  send  for  a  picture-cleaner,  and  tell  him  he  would  be 
crucified  if  he  dared  to  add  a  brushful  of  fresh  colour. 

Ah,  we  cannot  crucify  Deans  and  Chapters,  and  Restora- 
tion Committees !  As  Sydney  Smith  said,  they  have  neither 
souls  to  be  damned,  nor  (worse  luck  to  them)  anything  that 
we  can  kick.  We  cannot  crucify,  nor  damn,  nor  kick  them, 
except  in  a  metaphorical  and  Pickwickian  sense.  But  we 
still  have  the  privilege  of  every  freeborn  Briton  to  summon 
them  to  stop  in  their  career  of  vulgarity,  ignorance,  and  out- 
rage. There  is  one  infallible  test.  If,  when  an  ancient 
monument,  delivered  into  their  mercy,  needs  repair,  they  call 
in  an  engineer  to  do  what  is  mechanically  inevitable,  they 
mean  preservation  —  and  they  mean  right.  If  they  call  in 
an  architect,  an  artist,  or  any  one  with  "taste,"  or  aesthetic 
views,  they  mean  renovation  —  and  they  mean  wrong.  Half 
of  the  repairs  of  our  old  cathedrals  are  needed  underground ; 
perhaps  two-thirds  of  it.  Architects  are  not  wanted  under- 
ground. Engineers  are  —  and  engineers  are  the  only  people 
to  be  trusted  for  repairs  above  ground.  Call  in  the  ablest 
engineers  we  have,  the  men  who  build  Forth  Bridges  and 
Blackwall  Tunnels,  and  limit  them  strictly  to  preservation  of 
the  old,  with  absolute  veto  on  adding  anything  new.  Let  us 
avoid  architects,  artists,  and  zesthetes  as  the  very  Devil. 
"Some  demon  whispers  —  Dean,  now  show  your  taste !" 


PICTURE   EXHIBITIONS 

1888 

IN  spring  time  we  are  all  much  occupied  with  galleries, 
exhibitions,  and  high  art  in  many  forms;  and  we  hear  in- 
cessant discourse,  from  men  and  women  more  or  less  com- 
petent to  direct  our  taste,  as  to  the  merits  of  painters,  schools, 
and  styles,  as  to  good  and  bad  technique,  as  to  the  true  and 
the  false,  the  "precious"  and  the  "foul"  in  art.  I  some- 
times ask  myself,  a  plain  layman  who  presumes  not  to  have 
an  opinion  in  these  difficult  matters,  whether  we  reflect  enough 
upon  the  limits,  sphere,  and  subjects  of  painting,  on  the  rela- 
tions of  painting  to  life,  to  thought,  to  religion ;  whether  our 
painters  are  as  clear  as  they  ought  to  be  on  these  great  antece- 
dent problems:  —  What  can  be  painted,  what  ought  to  be 
the  end  of  a  picture,  what,  in  great  ages  of  art,  did  the  artist 
regard  as  his  business  and  function  ? 

Is  it  clear,  to  begin  with,  that  the  custom  of  holding  Exhibi- 
tions of  paintings  really  tends  to  the  advancement  of  art? 
With  very  few  exceptions,  all  modern  pictures  are  painted  on 
the  assumption  that  they  will  be,  or  may  be,  ultimately  ex- 
hibited. An  immense  number  of  modern  works  seem  painted 
solely  in  order  to  be  exhibited :  and  one  hopes  at  the  close  of 
the  Exhibition  they  are  at  once  painted  out.  We  are  so 
familiar  with  the  institution  of  art  exhibitions  that  we  take 
them  to  be  as  necessary  to  the  painter's  art  as  his  canvas 
and  brush.  And  we  seldom  reflect  that  in  no  great  epoch  of 
art  were  Exhibitions  ever  imagined. 

325 


326  MEMORIES  AND  THOUGHTS 

Can  we  conceive  of  Pheidias  and  Lysippus,  Zeuxis  and 
Apelles,  carting  their  works  into  a  gallery,  as  the  month  of 
April  came  round,  and  all  the  young  aesthetes  in  town,  in 
new  cheiton  and  chlamys,  noisily  criticising  the  folds  of 
"Nike's"  drapery,  the  curves  of  "Ilissus"'  ribs,  the  soft 
limbs  of  "Aphrodite,"  and  the  proud  glances  of  "Athene"? 
Fancy  Giotto,  Angelico,  Bellini,  and  Giorgione  closely 
crammed  into  long  galleries,  numbered  3785  and  so  forth, 
and  catalogued  with  little  snippets  from  Dante,  Petrarch,  and 
Boccaccio !  And  did  ingenious  youths  in  the  Gazetta  di 
Firenze,  or  the  Giornale  di  Roma,  publish  vehement  attacks 
or  insidious  puffs  of  the  School  that  each  affected  ?  Was  the 
"Sposalizio"  skied  by  the  Hanging  Committee;  was  the 
"Madonna  di  San  Sisto"  jammed  between  a  "Storm  at  Sea" 
and  a  " Portrait  of  a  Gentleman " ?  Were  Titian's  "Assump- 
tion" and  Tintoretto's  "Paradiso"  ever  rejected  by  the 
Academy  of  Venice  as  unsuited  for  exhibition  and  difficult 
to  hang? 

A  picture,  like  every  work  of  visual  art,  is,  or  ought  to  be, 
designed  to  fill  some  suitable  space  and  to  be  seen  with 
harmonious  surroundings.  An  altar-piece  has  to  fill  and 
dignify  a  chapel.  A  battle-piece  may  be  in  place  in  a  public 
hall.  A  portrait,  according  to  its  scale  and  style,  may  suit 
an  ancestral  corridor  or  a  domestic  parlour.  A  vignette  from 
the  "West  Coast"  or  "Kittens  at  Play"  may  give  sweetness 
and  light  to  the  cottage  boudoir.  But  an  Annual  Exhibition 
is  almost  the  only  spot  conceivable  where  no  picture  ever  can 
be  in  its  place,  where  the  local  environment  of  every  picture 
is  turned  upside  down,  where  every  note  in  the  gamut  of  art 
is  sounded  in  discord.  Suppose  an  Exhibition  of  musical 
instruments  where  from  eight  till  dusk  the  makers  con- 
tinuously played  on  their  own  instruments  such  airs  as  each 
thought  best  to  bring  out  the  tone  of  the  piece !  To  one  who 


PICTURE   EXHIBITIONS  327 

had  studied  painting  only  in  the  Campo  Santo  of  Pisa,  in  the 
Arena  Chapel,  in  Santa  Maria  Novella  and  Santa  Croce,  in 
the  Sistine  and  the  Vatican,  in  the  School  of  San  Rocco  and 
the  Doge's  Palace,  to  be  thrust  into  a  modern  exhibition  and 
told  to  judge  the  works  there,  would  seem  as  strange  and  as 
painful  as  to  be  asked  to  judge  of  musical  instruments  when 
all  were  being  played  upon  together  in  the  same  room  but 
with  different  airs. 

How  vastly  does  genius  loci,  the  placing  and  the  setting  of  a 
picture,  deepen  the  impression,  when  we  gaze  on  the  portraits 
of  Titian,  Veronese,  and  Tintoretto  in  the  Doge's  Palace,  or 
on  the  Vandykes  in  the  Genoese  palaces,  or  on  the  prophets 
and  Sibyls  who  keep  eternal  watch  in  the  vaults  of  the  Sistine, 
or  on  the  "Mantegna"  in  San  Zenone,  or  the  last  rays  of  the 
"Cenacolo"  in  the  Refectory  of  San  Lorenzo !  How  utterly 
different  are  Pisano's  "Pulpit"  or  Michael  Angelo's  "Notte," 
or  Ghiberti's  "Gates,"  as  we  see  them  in  Pisa  or  in  San 
Lorenzo  or  the  Baptistery,  and  as  we  see  them  in  the  Crystal 
Palace  at  Sydenham,  or  the  South  Kensington  Museum! 
And  yet  year  by  year  we  cram  side  by  side,  as  close  as  frames 
can  be  set,  in  a  wild  pot-pourri  of  pictorial  discord,  Holy 
Virgins,  washerwomen,  rapes  of  the  Sabines,  scenes  from 
Pickwick,  Ledas,  Dr.  Johnson  with  Boswell,  and  Lord 
Mayors  in  robes  of  office.  And  on  the  first  Monday  in  May 
we  rush  to  Burlington  House  and  expect  to  find  new  Titians 
and  Raphaels  cheek  by  jowl  with  a  crowd  of  works  which 
deliberately  aim  at  the  kind  of  success  attained  by  a  popular 
music-hall  song  or  a  penny  dreadful. 

No  really  great  picture  can  be  seen  in  an  Exhibition,  and 
the  greater  the  picture  the  more  it  loses.  Nearly  all  pictures 
are  nowadays  painted  with  a  view  to  possible  exhibition. 
But  some  are  not ;  and  we  all  know  how  much  hi  these  very 
rare  instances  the  painter  gains.  A  large  part  of  Rossetti's 


328  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

reputation  was  no  doubt  due  to  the  fact  that  he  never  ex- 
hibited; and  promiscuous  exhibitions  of  his  works,  even  in 
the  absence  of  discordant  surroundings,  have  hardly  enhanced 
his  peculiar  vogue.  Those  who  have  seen  the  pensive  fancies 
of  Burne- Jones  or  Leighton's  bright  visions  of  Greek  poetry 
in  the  studios  or  saloons  where  they  are  at  home,  or  for  which 
they  were  designed,  can  hardly  believe  that  they  are  the  same 
works  when  they  are  seen  jammed  into  a  gallery  between  a 
portrait  of  His  Royal  Highness  and  an  "arrangement  in  ultra- 
marine." We  might  as  well  expect  to  find  Andromache, 
Phryne,  and  Galatea  looking  natural,  goddess-like,  and 
Greek  if  they  mixed  with  the  public  on  a  crowded  Saturday 
afternoon. 

But  it  is  more  the  moral  effect  on  the  painter's  mind  than 
the  discordant  effect  on  his  exhibited  work  which  is  the  real 
evil  of  Exhibitions.  Some  painters  are  strong  enough  and 
honest  enough  to  withstand  temptation.  But  the  tempter  is 
always  at  work.  An  Exhibition  is  necessarily  more  or  less  a 
competition,  and  a  competition  where  for  the  most  part  the 
conspicuous  alone"  catches  the  public  eye.  //  jaut  sauter  aux 
yeux,  and  that  in  the  eyes  of  the  silly,  the  careless,  the  vulgar, 
in  order  to  be  popular.  And  the  painter  who  never  becomes 
popular  runs  great  risk  of  ceasing  to  paint  at  all.  The  dia- 
pason tends  always  to  grow  higher,  and  unless  an  air  is  given 
at  concert  pitch,  and  something  more,  it  is  in  danger  of 
sounding  somewhat  flat.  Every  device  that  colour,  size, 
form,  title,  subject,  frame,  can  give  to  attract  the  eye,  has 
been  exhausted  by  the  ingenious  painter,  and  not  always  by 
the  worst.  No  man  who  respects  his  art  stoops  to  such  an 
artifice,  and  the  honourable  artist  rejects  it  with  scorn.  But 
it  is  unworthy  of  us  to  subject  men  to  competition  with 
such  degraded  rivals,  and  to  expect  that  we  can  make  new 
Titians  and  Raphaels  by  a  process  which,  like  that  of  Exhibi- 


PICTURE   EXHIBITIONS  329 

tions,  smothers  the  great  qualities  by  discordant  surroundings 
and  stimulates  the  activity  of  the  vulgar  qualities. 

In  far  other  modes  were  works  of  art  ''exhibited"  to  the 
public  in  all  great  ages  of  art.  They  were  shown  in  the 
studio  in  which  they  were  produced,  or  hi  the  place  for  which 
they  were  designed;  in  the  first  to  the  few  whom  the  artist 
chose  to  admit,  in  the  second  on  the  public  and  ceremonial 
completion  of  the  work.  Were  Pheidias'  Athene  of  the  Par- 
thenon, the  gods  and  heroes  of  the  pediments,  and  the  Pan- 
athenaic  procession,  Centaurs  and  Lapithae,  sent  about  from 
gallery  to  gallery,  and  jammed  between  "Scenes  from  Aris- 
tophanes," "Geese  on  a  Common,"  and  a  presentation 
portrait  of  the  Right  Worshipful  the  Archon  Basileus? 
When  the  chryselephantine  Athene  was  finally  set  up  in  her 
Parthenon  a  great  festival  was  made,  and  the  citizens,  magis- 
trates, and  priests,  with  youths  and  maidens  in  procession, 
went  up  to  the  Acropolis  and  gazed  on  the  Goddess;  and 
there,  amidst  hymns,  sacrifices,  and  solemn  offerings,  the 
whole  city  rejoiced  and  wondered  at  the  marvellous  handi- 
work of  the  god-like  sculptor.  And  when  Cimabue  had 
finished  his  "Madonna"  all  Florence  attended  the  ceremony 
wherewith  it  was  set  up  above  the  altar  as  we  see  it  still ;  and 
Florence  that  day  kept  holiday  as  at  the  Feast  of  the  Annun- 
ciation. And  when  Raphael  lay  dead  in  state,  his  "Trans- 
figuration" stood  above  the  bier;  and  all  Rome  came  and 
gazed  in  wonder  and  reverence  at  the  dead  painter  and  at 
his  last  work  on  earth.  Such  were  Art  Exhibitions  in  the 
great  ages  of  art. 

This  brings  us  to  what  is  really  the  key  of  the  matter. 
The  discordant  hubbub  of  modern  Picture  Exhibitions  is  the 
least  part  of  the  evil.  It  is  the  divorce  of  art  from  the  highest 
religious,  social,  intellectual  movement  of  the  age  which  is  the 
root  of  decadence  in  art.  It  is  the  substitution  of  democratic 


330 


MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 


license  and  personal  caprice  for  grand  traditions  and  loyal 
service  in  the  larger  forces  of  life.  Here  is  the  root  of  feeble- 
ness, far  more  than  in  deficient  training,  crude  technique,  and 
picture  Barnums.  In  all  great  epochs  of  art  the  painter 
frankly  accepted  certain  great  canons  of  religious,  social,  or 
artistic  convention.  He  thoroughly  felt  his  art  to  be  the  ex- 
pression of  the  religious,  social,  and  intellectual  movement  of 
his  time.  He  took  it  to  be  his  business  to  give  to  that  move- 
ment colour  and  form.  His  art  was  not  at  all  self-sufficing 
and  detached.  It  was  simply  one  of  the  artistic  modes  of 
expressing  what  was  deepest  and  most  commanding  in  the 
spiritual  world.  The  painter  was  the  servant;  the  free, 
willing,  creative  servant,  but  the  servant  of  the  priest,  the 
thinker,  the  poet  and  the  statesman.  Pericles,  Ictinus,  and 
Pheidias  laboured  at  the  Parthenon  in  one  common  concep- 
tion :  a  work  by  Leucippus,  Polycleitus,  or  Zeuxis  was  an 
affair  of  State :  a  great  statesman  of  Rome,  it  was  supposed, 
identified  his  name  with  the  Pantheon,  one  of  the  most 
original  conceptions  in  the  history  of  art.  Giotto  worked  in 
the  Arena  Chapel  under  the  eye  of  Dante,  and  apparently 
under  his  inspiration.  Ghiberti,  Brunelleschi,  and  Mantegna 
lived  on  the  topmost  wave  of  one  of  the  most  wonderful  out- 
bursts of  the  human  intellect.  Leonardo  and  Michael  Angelo 
were  two  of  its  mightiest  forces,  even  had  neither  ever  touched 
a  pencil.  Raphael,  Benvenuto,  Titian,  Velasquez,  Jean 
Goujon,  Rubens,  Reynolds,  were  the  intimates  and  the  equals 
of  all  that  their  ages  possessed  of  brain,  of  knowledge,  of 
force. 

Painting,  which  is  a  secondary  and  not  a  primary  form  of 
human  skill,  cannot  sever  itself  from  power,  from  religion, 
from  thought,  without  becoming  at  once  feeble  and  wayward. 
The  note  of  too  much  of  modern  painting  is  to  be  at  once  silly 
and  bizarre.  It  has  flung  off  all  guides,  teachers,  and  tradi- 


PICTURE  EXHIBITIONS  331 

lions ;  repudiates  any  sort  of  connection  with  religion,  thought, 
or  rule ;  decides  everything  out  of  its  own  head ;  and  regards 
everything  and  anything  a  proper  subject  for  a  picture,  from 
the  Day  of  Judgment  to  a  mushroom.  Individual  whims, 
any  crude  hobby,  is  thought  to  be  quite  enough  to  enable  a 
man  to  choose  a  good  subject  for  a  painting,  and  to  emanci- 
pate him  from  the  conventions  which  condemned  Raphael 
to  eternal  "Madonnas,"  Titian  to  perpetual  "Europas," 
"Ariadnes,"  and  "Aphrodites,"  and  Murillo  to  innumerable 
cherubs.  The  modern  painter  holds  himself  to  be  as  abso- 
lutely free  to  invent  his  own  subject,  to  improvise  his  own 
canons  of  art,  to  humour  his  own  fancy,  as  Mr.  Gilbert  when 
he  makes  a  new  burlesque,  or  Mr.  Rider  Haggard  when  he 
sketches  a  new  novel. 

But  a  picture  is  not  a  novel;  for  the  painter's  art  is  im- 
measurably less  fertile  and  elastic  than  the  written  art  of  the 
poet  or  romancer.  No  genius  can  enable  the  painter  to 
compete  with  the  story-teller  in  versatility,  in  subtlety,  in 
profusion  and  continuity  of  effect.  The  painter  has  his  own 
resources  in  vividness,  in  colour,  in  harmony,  in  suddenness 
and  unity  of  his  blow  on  the  imagination  —  it  may  be  also  in 
beauty.  But  of  course  he  buys  these  resources  at  the  price 
that  he  cannot,  by  the  conditions  of  his  art,  touch  anything 
but  what  is  seen,  that  he  is  rigorously  limited  to  one  moment 
of  time,  that  he  cannot  possibly  impart  anything  which  is  not 
known,  that  he  can  never  explain,  never  continue  a  story,  tell 
nothing  which  it  requires  words  to  tell,  and  by  the  very  instru- 
ment he  uses  he  is  forbidden,  except  in  partial  and  exceptional 
ways,  to  touch  the  loathsome,  the  horrible,  and  the  spasmodic. 

These  obvious  truisms  are  trampled  under  foot  in  our 
modern  Exhibitions,  where  half  the  figure  subjects  are  painted 
novelettes,  whereas  these  conditions  were  strictly  respected  in 
all  great  ages  of  art.  The  necessity  for  respecting  them,  and 


332  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

the  instinctive  sense  that  the  painter's  art  is  a  corollary  of 
larger  forms  of  human  power,  and  not  a  substantive  and  self- 
sufficing  force,  compelled  the  painter,  in  all  great  ages  of  art, 
to  limit  himself  to  a  definite  range  of  subjects,  to  follow 
loyally  the  current  ideals  in  religion,  in  poetry,  and  in  manners, 
to  use  perfectly  simple  and  familiar  motifs,  to  shun  whims, 
conundrums,  eccentricities  and  fantasias,  very  seldom  indeed 
to  be  comic,  and  almost  never  to  be  disgusting.  The  great 
painters  painted  only  a  few  score  of  subjects  —  absolutely 
familiar  to  all  who  saw  them  —  and  these  almost  without 
exception  grand,  ennobling,  obvious  types  of  religious,  mytho- 
logical, and  social  ideals.  Nine-tenths  of  the  painter's  aim 
was,  as  it  should  be,  beauty. 

Nowadays  a  large  part  of  the  modern  Exhibition  seems  to 
have  no  other  end  but  to  raise  a  laugh,  to  invent  a  rebus,  to 
puzzle,  to  disgust,  or,  mainly  in  France,  to  excite  the  animal 
taste  for  blood  and  lust.  When  we  walk  through  a  gallery  of 
fine  old  masters,  we  need  no  catalogue  to  describe  to  us  the 
subjects.  We  do  not  require  to  read  half  a  page  from 
BoswelFs  Johnson  or  Macaulay's  History  of  England,  it  may 
be  from  Coventry  Patmore  or  Ouida,  before  we  can  conceive 
what  it  all  means.  No  ancient  master  would  have  tried  to 
paint  Shelley's  Skylark  or  Swinburne's  Songs  before  Sunrise. 
In  the  whole  gallery  of  old  masters  there  are  perhaps  not 
more  than  a  score  of  different  subjects,  and  all  of  these  ob- 
vious to  every  eye  at  a  glance.  Titian  and  Holbein  painted 
portraits  as  their  sitters  were,  and  did  not  turn  them  into 
ladies  and  gentlemen  dressed  up  for  a  fancy  ball.  Although 
the  subjects  are  so  few,  so  obvious,  so  conventional,  there  is 
no  monotony.  All  looks  noble,  solemn,  beautiful;  for  the 
aim  of  the  painter  then  was  to  show  how  much  beauty  could 
be  shed  over  the  old  ideals  of  faith,  poetry,  and  manners. 

It  is  quite  true  that  the  old  ideals  in  faith,  poetry,  and 


PICTURE   EXHIBITIONS  333 

manners  have  proved  insufficient.  They  have  failed  us ;  and 
we  must  make  new  ones.  No  sensible  man  wishes  to  recall 
them ;  nor  does  he  wish  to  bind  art  again  in  limits  so  narrow. 
Three  centuries  ago  modern  Europe  got  rid  of  its  old  stand- 
ards. The  faith  which  inspired  Madonnas  and  Saints,  the 
poetry  which  was  limited  to  a  crude  mythology  and  a  few 
romances,  the  manners  which  were  essentially  based  on  aristo- 
cratic display,  indolence,  battle,  and  luxury,  were  too  narrow, 
too  shallow,  and  too  anti-social  to  be  permanent.  Art,  like 
modern  civilisation,  has  cast  them  off.  And  it  is  idle  to  dream 
that  they  can  ever  return. 

But  it  does  not  follow  at  all,  because  the  old  ideals  and 
sources  of  art  are  gone,  that  painting  is  to  have  no  ideals,  no 
sources,  no  guide :  that  every  painter  is  to  be  a  law  to  him- 
self;  and  that  every  hobby,  every  accident  of  any  painter's 
life,  can  equally  supply  a  subject  for  a  picture.  What  has 
happened  is  this.  So  far  as  modern  art  is  concerned,  religion 
has  almost  disappeared ;  every  tradition  of  great  art  has  been 
wiped  out ;  and  the  old  subordination  of  painting  to  intellect 
and  poetry  is  put  aside.  The  reign  of  universal  democracy 
has  set  in  for  painting  with  greater  virulence  even  than  in 
politics  and  in  manners.  Painters,  apparently  by  their  fond- 
ness for  the  Stuarts,  Marie  Antoinette,  and  the  Royal  Family, 
ought,  one  would  think,  to  be  Tories  and  loyalists.  But  in 
the  practice  of  their  art  they  recognise  the  wildest  license  of 
individual  judgment,  the  entire  equality  of  all  men  to  lay 
down  the  law  in  art,  and  the  trenchant  abolition  of  every  great 
and  historic  tradition. 

In  all  great  ages  of  art  the  artist's  subject  was  expected  to 
conform  to  given  conditions.  It  must  be  simple,  familiar, 
noble,  traditional,  and  beautiful.  Nowadays  it  is  too  often 
enigmatical,  eccentric,  mean,  whimsical,  or  disgusting.  Phei- 
dias  and  the  great  Greeks  represented  the  gods  and  heroes  of 


334  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

whom  Homer  sang,  the  great  memories  of  national  history, 
the  beings  in  whom  centred  the  worship,  reverence,  and  ad- 
miration of  men,  the  loveliest  women  known  to  the  city,  the 
finest  champions  in  the  games.  Raphael  and  his  fellows 
painted  the  great  types  of  religious  adoration,  the  familiar 
mythologies,  great  men  and  great  events  in  history.  But  in 
all  cases,  whether  the  subject  was  sacred  or  secular,  old  or 
new,  it  was  always  simple,  familiar,  noble,  traditional,  and 
beautiful.  Nowadays  a  painter  seems  to  consider  that  his 
business  is  to  invent  something  absolutely  new,  if  possible 
queer,  accidental,  personal,  comic,  namby-pamby,  or  bizarre. 
He  seems  to  imagine  that  his  duty  is  to  compose  a  mild 
original  sonnet,  a  snippety  original  novel,  or  a  watery  anec- 
dote, grave  or  gay.  Now  painters  are  not  poets,  romancers, 
nor  literary  craftsmen.  The  result  is  that,  when  they  try  to 
paint  sonnets,  stories,  or  essays,  the  work  is,  intellectually, 
too  often  on  a  level  of  that  which  goes  into  the  columns  of  a 
county  newspaper,  and  is  headed  "Our  Poet's  Corner,"  and 
"Curious  or  Entertaining."  How  can  painters  suppose  that 
cultivated  men  and  women  care  for  their  japes,  their  puns, 
their  snippings  from  stale  Elegant  Extracts,  or  for  their  own 
poetical  and  moral  maunderings  on  canvas  ?  A  painter  who 
invents  a  new  subject  is  almost  certain  to  insert  something 
that  is  either  silly  or  bizarre.  Almost  all  the  anecdotes  which 
fill  half  a  page  of  the  Academy  catalogues,  as  subjects  of  so- 
called  historical  pictures,  scandal  about  Queen  Elizabeth, 
the  gallantries  of  some  Stuart  prince  (understanding  gallantry 
in  all  its  various  senses),  the  oddities  of  Swift,  Johnson,  or 
Walter  Scott,  anecdotes  of  the  Reign  of  Terror,  etc.,  are 
either  quite  unauthentic  or  utterly  trivial;  nay,  not  seldom 
they  are  grossly  libellous  and  horribly  mean.  So  long  as  a 
subject  offers  a  medium  for  sheeny  stuffs,  quaint  costume, 
and  Wardour  Street  bric-a-brac,  none  seem  to  be  too  silly, 


PICTURE   EXHIBITIONS  335 

too  scurrilous,  or  too  petty  for  some  painters.  It  is  not  the 
business  of  painters  to  become  very  minor  poets  and  tenth- 
rate  serial  novelists.  They  have,  as  we  say,  to  paint  the 
simple,  the  familiar,  the  noble,  the  traditional,  the  beautiful 
—  so  as  to  put  new  beauty  into  the  old  types  of  our  deepest 
adoration,  love,  reverence,  and  delight.  Their  business  is  to 
add  glow,  intensity,  charm,  to  what  is  best  in  the  faith,  in 
the  memory,  in  the  intellect  of  their  age :  —  not  to  puzzle,  to 
startle,  much  less  to  sicken  us. 

It  is  the  honour  of  our  older  Academicians  steadily  to  up- 
hold the  great  traditions  of  the  noble  style,  as  to  the  subjects 
proper  for  painting.  First  and  foremost  in  this  matter  comes 
Leighton  himself.  And  in  nothing  does  his  culture,  taste, 
and  training  in  the  great  schools  tell  more  than  in  the  example 
he  sets  his  contemporaries  as  to  the  field,  limits,  and  aim  of 
their  art.  Never  was  this  shown  more  finely  than  in  the 
subject  of  the  first  picture  with  which  he  came  upon  the 
world,  "The  Procession  at  Florence"  to  escort  Cimabue's 
Madonna  to  Santa  Maria  Novella.  Here  was  an  almost  per- 
fect subject  for  a  modern  painter.  It  was  simple,  obvious, 
noble,  and  beautiful.  Though  the  idea  was  new,  it  presented 
a  touching  and  dignified  incident  in  the  history  of  art,  in  a 
form  familiar  and  interesting  to  all  cultivated  people.  It  was 
like  a  chapter  out  of  Modern  Painters  in  colour  and  form. 
I  confine  myself  strictly  to  the  subject,  to  the  painter's  motif, 
and  do  not  touch  upon  any  point  in  the  execution.  As  a 
subject  it  was  perfect.  For  some  forty  years  he  has  continued 
to  present  a  series  of  subjects,  almost  equally  happy  - 
Greek,  mythological,  or  historical  —  but  all  simple,  familiar, 
noble,  traditional,  and  beautiful.  To  understand  such  pic- 
tures as  the  "Daphnephoria,"  "Phryne,"  "Cimon,"  or  the 
"Hemicycle"  at  Kensington,  it  is  not  necessary  to  read  a 
page  out  of  some  historian,  or  to  consult  Dictionaries  of 


336  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

Antiquities.  Every  cultivated  man  at  once  recognises  the 
subject,  and  sees  at  a  glance  that  it  is  simple,  impressive, 
beautiful.  So,  too,  the  Andromache  is  equally  happy  in  its 
subject.  Every  cultivated  man,  without  reading  the  lines 
from  the  Iliad,  can  recognise  the  incident ;  can  see  its  beauty, 
its  pathos,  its  tragic  and  lyric  dignity ;  and  so  he  is  drawn  on 
to  study  in  detail  the  Hellenicism,  the  refinement  of  know- 
ledge and  taste,  the  subtle  convolutions  of  grace,  with  which 
the  painter  illustrates  the  poet.  We  are  dealing  now  solely 
with  the  subject  of  a  painting.  And  here  surely  is  the  painter's 
art  seeking  to  express  the  grandest  poetry,  in  high  and  pure 
traditional  types. 

So,  too,  Mr.  Watts  has  maintained  a  noble  choice  of  sub- 
ject in  the  grand  and  true  vein  of  the  old  schools.  In  his 
"Dawn,"  "Death,"  "Love,"  "Hope,"  "Faith,"  and  like 
symbolical  fancies,  he  is  usually  within  the  limits  of  the 
simple  and  the  intelligible.  At  times  he,  too,  wanders  off 
into  the  abstruse  and  the  fantastic  —  never  into  that  of  the 
trivial  or  the  repulsive.  A  poet  may  be  mystical,  obscure, 
even  wild  for  a  space;  but  a  painter  cannot  be  so  without 
infinite  risk.  The  definiteness,  the  fixity,  the  simplicity  of  his 
instrument  bind  him.  No  man  less  than  Michael  Angelo  can 
venture  to  be  Apocalyptic;  nor  can  painter  born  of  woman 
be  mystical  without  ceasing  to  be  intelligible;  and  an  un- 
intelligible picture  is  a  rebus. 

These  sound  traditions  as  to  subject  for  the  most  part  are 
sufficiently  preserved  by  such  men  as  Mr.  Poynter,  Mr. 
Armitage,  Mr.  Long,  Mr.  Richmond  —  to  mention  no  others. 
For  the  most  part  the  subjects  they  paint  are  simple,  familiar, 
dignified,  and  beautiful.  So  far  as  Mr.  Long  shows  a  tendency 
to  plunge  into  learned  antiquities,  and  oddities  of  archaeology, 
needing,  to  explain  them,  long  passages  from  Diodorus  Siculus 
—  apparently  his  favourite  author  —  so  far  he  is  leaving  the 


PICTURE   EXHIBITIONS  337 

ground  of  familiar  and  simple  art.  Of  Mr.  Alma  Tadema 
and  Sir  John  Millais  a  few  words  must  be  said.  Sir  John  is 
only  on  rare  occasions  a  painter  of  historical  and  imaginative 
incidents;  and  his  greatest  admirers  will  hardly  think  that 
he  best  displays  in  them  his  wonderful  gifts  as  a  painter. 
A  man  who  tries  to  write  the  chapters  of  a  novel  on  a  canvas 
three  feet  by  two  is  on  perilous  ground.  The  "Huguenot," 
the  "Order  for  Release"  achieved  that  feat.  It  may  be 
doubted  if  the  "Fireman"  and  some  others  did  not  overstep 
the  line.  The  business  of  a  painter  is  not  to  tell  a  thrilling 
story,  or  to  paint  spasms  —  we  cannot  bear  thrilling  moments 
eternally  prolonged  in  one  strain.  His  business  is  to  present 
a  subject  which  is  simple,  familiar,  noble,  and  beautiful. 

Still  less  can  it  be  the  business  of  a  painter  elaborately, 
lovingly,  and  learnedly  to  paint  a  childish  practical  joke. 
From  the  point  of  view  of  subject  and  motif,  Mr.  Alma 
Tadema's  "Heliogabalus,"  in  spite  of  its  pictorial  skill,  is 
itself  a  bad  joke.  The  subject  has  every  vice  that  a  subject 
can  have.  It  is  at  once  silly,  bizarre,  incomprehensible, 
whimsical,  and  mean.  It  is  bad  enough  to  commemorate  at 
all  one  of  the  most  pitiful  animals  whom  accident  ever  thrust 
into  a  throne ;  but  to  choose  a  childish  anecdote  out  of  some 
chronique  scabreuse,  and  one  which  it  is  physically  impossible 
to  paint,  is  really  to  sin  against  art  and  sense.  This  is  all 
the  more  to  be  regretted  because  Mr.  Alma  Tadema's  astonish- 
ing powers  as  a  painter  have  been  long  united  with  real  learn- 
ing, singular  instinct  for  antique  life,  and  a  delightful  zest 
for  the  aroma  of  classical  ages.  Mr.  Alma  Tadema  is  one  of 
the  few  living  men  who  can  don  the  cheiton  and  the  toga  with 
the  air  of  a  true  ancient.  But  he  has  too  often  shown  a 
dangerous  turn  for  archasological  eccentricities,  and  trivial 
bypaths  and  alleys  of  the  antique  world ;  when,  with  all  his 
mastery  of  hand  and  stores  of  knowledge,  his  business  is  to 


338  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

show  us  its  temples,  palaces,  life,  and  thought,  its  power, 
its  splendour,  its  beauty  —  it  may  be  its  vices  and  its  weak- 
ness, but  not  its  tricks  and  tomfooleries. 

No  painter  in  any  age  has  ever  shown  more  loyal  regard 
for  noble  traditions  in  selecting  his  subjects  than  has  Mr. 
Burne- Jones.  A  certain  field  of  romantic  mythology  he  has 
made  all  his  own  —  the  old  tales  of  Hellas  conceived  in  the 
spirit  of  a  Renascence  mystic.  Burne- Jones'  studio,  full  of 
a  long  mythological  series,  looks  as  if  Sir  Thomas  Malory  had 
made  us  a  volume  of  Greek  myths,  "translated  out  of  the 
Greke  boke."  These  solemn  fugues  on  the  theme  of  "Pen- 
seroso"  are  simple,  noble,  traditional,  and  beautiful.  It  is  a 
question  if  they  are  familiar,  if  they  do  not  verge  on  the 
mystical,  if  they  are  not  at  times  occult  and  cryptogrammic. 
A  man  who  dwells  so  much  alone  in  a  dreamland  of  his  own 
is  necessarily  appealing  to  a  select  audience.  And  it  has  been 
Burne- Jones'  noble  aim  through  life  to  pray  ever  for  "audi- 
ence fit,  though  few."  As  to  Rossetti,  he  withdrew  into  a 
dreamland  infinitely  less  accessible  to  the  public,  a  dream- 
land almost  confined  to  one  great  poet  and  to  one  set  of 
types.  It  required  a  special  study  in  itself  to  know  what 
Rossetti  was  dreaming  about  at  all.  No  painter  ever  took 
such  pains  to  dream  for  himself,  by  himself,  and  within  him- 
self alone.  To  the  poet  —  and  Rossetti  was  certainly  a  poet 
—  the  claim  is  legitimate  enough.  But  a  painter,  as  he  quits 
the  simple  and  the  familiar,  is  making  for  the  enigmatical 
and  the  artificial.  And  in  any  case  he  is  deliberately  re- 
stricting the  power  of  his  work  to  a  special  circle  of  cognoscenti 
and  illuminati. 

It  is  of  course  in  the  Salon  at  Paris  that  conspicuous  ex- 
amples are  seen  of  the  modern  craving  for  new  and  startling 
subjects.  Not  that  there  is  any  real  "French  school,"  as 
some  persons  fancy.  For  the  Salon  contains  examples  of 


PICTURE   EXHIBITIONS  339 

fifty  schools,  the  works  of  painters  from  almost  every  civilised 
nation,  representing  a  score  of  very  different  ideals  of  art. 
But  in  the  Salon,  with  the  audacity,  license,  versatility,  and 
power  it  collects,  are  seen  examples  of  the  best  and  worst 
types  of  modern  aim  in  art.  Humanity,  pathos,  imagina- 
tion, tenderness,  bestiality,  lust,  ferocity,  impudence,  and 
tomfoolery  jostle  each  other  in  the  fierce  struggle  to  attract 
the  notice  of  the  public.  All  is  wild  democratic  license. 
Filth,  disease,  death,  carnage,  torture,  prurient  prying  into 
things  which  decency  and  self-respect  keep  covered,  the 
secrets  of  the  dissecting-room,  of  the  consulting-room,  of  the 
studio,  of  the  dressing-room,  of  the  slums  and  the  sewers, 
form  the  inspiration  of  pictures  equally  with  devotion,  poetry, 
sympathy,  and  dignity.  Every  man  fights  for  his  own  hand, 
paints  in  his  own  method,  chooses  his  own  subject,  and  tells 
his  own  story.  And  the  result  is  an  unimaginable  pot-pourri. 
Huge  canvases  seem  designed  solely  on  the  principle  so  well 
understood  by  the  venders  of  "Pears'  soap."  They  are  not 
pictures,  but  gigantic  posters,  to  let  the  world  know  that  there 
is  such  a  painter  as  M .  Tel  much  at  your  service.  No  human 
being  could  buy,  much  less  live  beside,  these  enormities.  And 
the  greater  the  enormity,  the  more  is  the  public  forced  to 
stare. 

Of  all  infamies  on  canvas  I  ever  saw  the  worst  is  "The 
Maniac."  Here,  in  a  bare  room,  with  every  sign  of  a  recent 
struggle,  the  furniture  smashed  to  fragments,  stove,  mirror, 
chairs,  door,  and  crockery  in  bits,  on  the  edge  of  a  deal 
table,  sits,  in  his  shirt,  a  wretched  maniac,  grinning  in 
ghastly  triumph.  At  his  feet  lies  extended,  in  a  pool  of 
blood,  with  clothes  torn  to  shreds,  the  dead  body  of  a  woman, 
common,  coarse,  and  prosaic.  Even  had  the  picture  power 
and  terror,  which  it  has  not,  it  would  be  loathsome.  But  the 
cold,  hard,  dry,  photographic  presentment  of  a  vulgar  mad- 


340  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

man  committing  a  brutal  murder  is  as  foul  a  subject  as  ever 
painter  imagined.  Zolaism  is  indeed  rampant  in  art  when 
this  is  possible.  But  in  literature  even  a  ghastly  murder  does 
not  stand  out  in  such  visible  crude  brutality.  And  no  one  is 
obliged  to  read  Zola  unless  he  deliberately  choose.  To  ex- 
pose on  a  life-size  canvas  to  the  public  gaze  Zolaism  in  its 
crudest  shape  is  an  offence  against  civilisation,  which  every 
decent  man  and  woman,  ought  to  treat  as  an  unpardonable 
outrage. 

Or  what  shall  we  say  to  a  "Rape  in  the  Stone  Age,"  by 
Jamin  ?  Here  a  sort  of  naked  Polyphemus  has  seized  and  is 
carrying  off  a  nude,  very  white  studio  model,  who  is  posed  as 
the  female  of  the  Stone  Age.  In  her  fury  this  elegant  nymph 
has  rammed  her  thumb  into  Polyphemus'  right  eye,  which 
she  is  just  gouging  out.  Polyphemus,  howling  with  pain, 
clutches  the  graceful  girl  in  his  huge  fist,  and  is  just  crushing 
in  her  ribs,  she  yelling  in  agony.  To  them  come  Polyphemus 
No.  2,  a  sort  of  Porte  St.  Martin  torturer;  who,  seizing  his 
rival  behind,  is  garrotting  him  by  strangling  him  round  the 
throat.  Conceive  the  man  who  shall  purchase  this  work  of 
art,  and  sit  down  to  dinner  daily  in  presence  of  the  last  yells 
of  palaeolithic  man  and  pre-metallic  woman. 

A  new  motif  for  art  has  also  been  discovered  in  death, 
disease,  and  lechery,  treated  in  its  most  prosaic,  photographic, 
and  vulgar  side.  Some  dozen  corpses  laid  out  with  candles, 
wreaths,  and  satin  pillows,  a  surgeon  examining  a  girl's 
bared  chest,  the  painter's  model  playing  pranks  without  any 
clothing,  everything  put  on  to  canvas  which  Zola  puts  into 
print.  One  picture  indeed  is  a  melancholy  sight,  for  it  has 
power,  skill,  even  pathos  of  a  certain  kind:  on  a  long,  stiff 
bench,  in  the  ante-room  of  a  hospital,  sit  a  row  of  women, 
waiting  for  their  turn  to  be  admitted  —  disease  in  all  its 
shapes  stamped  on  their  faces  and  forms.  All  of  them  are 


PICTURE   EXHIBITIONS  341 

dull,  commonplace,  colourless,  and  weary.  No  one  of  them 
tells  her  story ;  no  ray  of  grace,  cheerfulness,  or  imagination 
lights  the  composition.  No  canvas  can  tell  such  a  story. 
They  sit  there  tired,  faint,  and  sickly  —  and  that  is  all.  It 
is  a  simple  study  of  disease  —  of  disease  apparently  hopeless ; 
for  not  a  touch  is  there  to  show  us  humanity,  goodness, 
science,  or  love.  There  is  not  even  tragedy;  for  the  poor 
creatures  are  simply  a-weary,  without  dignity,  without 
strength  to  suffer  even  with  each  other.  It  is  a  bald  study  of 
disease.  But  disease  is  not  a  subject  for  the  painter's  skill. 
Such  is  the  truly  infernal  influence  of  Zola  upon  modern  art. 

Happily  amidst  these  horrors  start  up,  like  flowers  bloom- 
ing among  the  grinning  skulls  of  a  charnel-house,  here  and 
there  a  noble  subject  nobly  conceived.  Cheek  by  jowl  with 
bestialities  such  as  "L'esclave  blanche,"  "Elle  ralait  en 
sanglots  sourds  .  .  .,"  "Le  repos  du  modele,"  "Turpe  senilis 
amor,"  "The  Duel  between  Women,"  etc., etc., stand  such  fine 
conceptions  as  Detaille's  "Dream,"  J.  Lefebvre's  "Orphan 
Girl  with  her  Grandmother  at  Prayer,"  Humbert's  "Three 
Stages  of  Motherhood,"  Bougereau's  "First  Death  — Abel," 
Henner's  "Saint  Sebastian,"  Aime*  Ferret's  "Golden  Wed- 
ding," Hebert's  "Nameless  Heroes."  We  are  dealing  now 
with  these  pictures,  as  throughout  this  paper,  with  all  pictures, 
solely  from  the  point  of  view  of  their  subject,  as  it  might  be 
understood  from  description  and  a  rough  sketch.  The  com- 
position, colour,  execution,  and  the  like  belong  to  another 
field.  But  these,  with  some  splendid  portraits  and  excellent 
landscapes,  are  enough  to  prove  that  modern  art  has  yet 
before  it  a  great  future,  when  it  shall  have  cleared  itself  from 
filth,  bombast,  putrefaction,  and  gore ;  and  shall  have  settled 
the  primary  problem  —  What  can  be  painted,  what  cannot 
be  painted,  and  what  is  the  painter's  function  ? 

The  resources  open  to  modern  art  can  be  no  better  seen 


342 


MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 


than  in  the  scheme  of  Detaille's  "  Dream."  A  regiment  in 
mid  campaign  is  bivouacked  by  night  on  the  open  field,  in  the 
first  streaks  of  the  dawn  which  are  to  bring  in  a  few  hours 
the  day  of  battle,  glory,  and  death.  Young  and  old,  veteran 
and  conscript,  officer  and  soldier,  lie  stretched  in  long  lines 
beside  their  piled  arms  —  watchfulness,  hope,  eagerness, 
anxiety,  indifference,  bull-dog  courage,  and  young  ambition 
seem  to  quiver  over  the  upturned  faces  and  the  prostrate 
limbs.  Dimly  in  the  driving  clouds  overhead  may  be  traced 
a  dreamlike  and  cloudy  army  in  the  air,  the  ghost  or  vision 
of  some  imperial  host,  with  eagles  and  arms  waving  mistily 
in  the  sky,  filling  the  heavens  with  the  weird  and  silent  clang 
of  the  charge,  the  rally,  and  the  crash  of  the  heroes  of  the 
Grande  Armee.  Now  here  is  a  motij  wholly  new  and  incon- 
ceivable by  ancient  master,  which  yet  is  simple,  obvious, 
imaginative,  noble,  and  solemn.  Here  for  once  is  a  subject 
wholly  within  the  reach  of  the  painter  and  yet  full  of  modern 
poetry.  All  things  are  yet  possible  to  an  art  which  can  so 
strike  forth  a  new  and  noble  strain. 

J.  Lefebvre's  solemn  and  fine  picture  of  the  aged  "Widow 
with  her  Orphan  Grandchild  in  Church,"  and  Humbert's 
"  Mother  in  Three  Ages,"  belong  to  a  school  in  which  the 
French  are  still  almost  supreme  —  the  majestic  simple  pathos 
of  the  humblest,  saddest  life  —  without  elegances,  without 
weakness,  without  puerile  sentimentalism ;  not  without  a  cer- 
tain severe  and  restrained  beauty,  but  with  no  trace  of  con- 
cession to  prettiness.  In  this  form  of  massive  tenderness,  in 
this  profound  simplicity  of  the  human,  the  Salon  stands  forth 
unrivalled.  And  yet  why,  alas !  in  so  rare  an  example  ?  How 
in  the  same  gallery  with  works  so  nobly  conceived,  beside  such 
exquisite  refinement  as  we  see  in  Bougereau's  "Bather,"  and 
Henner's  "Daphne,"  such  grand  landscape  subjects  as  J. 
Breton's  "Shepherd's  Star,"  such  pure  and  touching  scenes 


PICTURE   EXHIBITIONS  343 

of  peasant  life,  such  verve  everywhere,  such  knowledge  of 
antiquity,  of  the  East  and  the  South,  such  invention,  such 
diabolical  cleverness  and  enterprise,  how  there  can  be  painted 
year  by  year  monstrous  grotesques,  rampant  idiocies,  satanic 
obscenities,  huge  follies,  such  as  "St.  Denis,"  calmly  walking 
along  a  high  road  with  his  decapitated  head  in  his  hands, 
bleeding  down  his  headless  trunk,  to  the  terror  of  the  very 
dull  peasants  at  work,  the  "Titans  tumbling  out  of  Heaven," 
"The  Milky  Way"  (or  " Milk  Street,"  as  the  official  catalogue 
Englishes  it),  "Pluto  and  Proserpine,"  abominations  like 
"The  Minotaur  in  the  Labyrinth,"  and  the  like  —  this  is 
indeed  barely  intelligible.  Perhaps  Maignan's  "Voices  of 
the  Tocsin"  may  be  said  to  touch  the  border-line.  In  a 
mediaeval  belfry  we  see  a  huge  bell  swinging  madly  in  the 
alarum;  burning  roofs,  smoke,  and  flame  in  the  streets 
below.  And,  as  the  vast  bell  roars  out  its  awakening  peal, 
weird  forms  of  terror,  havoc,  despair,  courage,  hate,  and 
death  whirl  like  vultures  through  the  air,  clutching  and 
tearing  the  bell-ropes  in  their  mad  dance,  and  rocking  the 
very  tower  to  its  foundations  in  their  fury.  It  is  a  strange 
Victor  Hugoish  conception,  not  without  grandeur  and  poetry ; 
paintable  perhaps  by  an  artist  who  combined  in  himself 
Michael  Angelo,  Tintoretto,  and  Turner.  As  it  is,  though 
in  one  way  still  a  striking  picture,  it  is  too  much  of  a  "salmi 
of  frog's  legs,"  as  they  said  of  Correggio's  famous  dome  at 
Parma.  It  is  plain  that  at  the  root  of  modern  art  lies  the 
primary  question:  which  is  this.  All  canons,  and  limits, 
and  subjects,  of  the  painter,  as  understood  of  old,  being  gone, 
what  new  canons,  what  new  limits,  and  what  new  subjects 
can  we  find  to  replace  them? 

Now  this  is  not  an  artist's  problem,  or  at  least  not  a  problem 
for  the  artist  to  solve  alone.  It  is  a  problem  for  the  best 
philosophy  and  judgment  of  our  age.  It  is  for  the  best 


344 


MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 


brains  amongst  us  to  settle  some  practical  canons  of  the 
limits  of  the  art  of  painting,  to  indicate  the  barrier  between 
paintable  and  unpaintable  things,  to  tell  us,  and  to  tell  our 
painters,  what  is  their  relation  to  religion,  to  poetry,  to 
thought.  Our  art  critics  have  perhaps  too  much  neglected 
this  all-important  field.  They  have  been  too  apt  to  repeat 
the  technical  jargon  of  the  studios,  and  to  omit  the  primary 
question,  What  can  the  painter  paint  ?  Mr.  Ruskin,  who  in 
so  many  wonderful  ways  has  rekindled  the  torch  of  art  for 
our  whole  Victorian  age,  in  architecture,  in  painting,  even  in 
dress,  nay,  almost  in  literature,  has  done  much  to  weaken  the 
control  of  good  sense  over  the  subjects  of  art.  Intent  on  his 
central  idea  of  good  work,  he  lavishes  extravagant  praise  on 
mere  enfantillage,  goes  into  raptures  over  a  baby  and  white 
kitten,  systematically  dwells  on  the  painted  surface,  and  not 
the  painted  mind.  Indeed,  almost  the  one  thing  about  which 
he  rarely  utters  a  word  is  the  human  form  —  in  reality,  nine- 
tenths  of  the  highest  art.  Following  him,  the  art-mentors  of 
our  time  will  discourse  largely  about  schemes  of  colour,  truth 
in  a  brocade,  and  successful  impasto,  but  they  have  little  to 
say  about  that  which  precedes  all  these  and  governs  the 
whole  —  how  should  the  painter  choose  his  subject  ?  If  the 
prevailing  vices  of  the  foreign  schools  are  lewdness  and  bom- 
bast, the  prevailing  vices  of  the  English  schools  are  triviality 
and  vulgarity.  Our  English  painters,  with  some  splendid 
exceptions,  do  not  seem  to  live  sufficiently  with  the  higher 
intelligence  of  the  time,  seem  to  be  inadequately  cultivated 
as  men,  and  have  little  access  to  the  best  religious  and  poetic 
standards  of  our  age. 

It  is  the  object  of  these  pages  to  invite  some  competent 
authority  to  clear  the  ground  of  this  question.  In  the  mean- 
time, if  a  simple  member  of  the  shilling  public  may  offer  a 
suggestion  at  all,  the  following  points  are  submitted  as  a 


PICTURE   EXHIBITIONS  345 

rough  and  tentative  sketch.  Exhibitions  of  paintings  in 
crowded  galleries  are  a  real  incubus  on  art ;  they  swamp  the 
merits  of  the  good  and  stimulate  the  faults  of  the  worse. 
The  twelve  rooms  at  Burlington  House,  which  have  more 
than  2000  works,  cannot  properly  show  more  than  200; 
indeed,  100  would  be  a  far  wiser  limit.  And  even  100  would 
be  strangely  and  cruelly  out  of  place  in  any  mere  gallery,  if 
they  were  works  of  real  imagination  and  power.  All  pictures 
should  be  exhibited  under  a  simple  title:  every  word  of 
poetry,  extract,  Diodorus  Siculus,  Macaulay's  History,  puns, 
sentiments,  and  ejaculations,  should  be  strictly  forbidden,  as 
at  Paris.  Picture  galleries  are  not  comic  annuals,  nor  are 
they  Methodist  pulpits,  and  fun  of  all  sorts,  literary  dribble, 
and  sermonising  are  horribly  out  of  place  in  a  picture.  Next, 
Art  Academies  are  not  International  Exhibitions;  and  we 
do  not  want  Japanneries,  Colinderies,  and  laborious  cos- 
turneries  from  foreign  lands  thrust  upon  us  simply  to  prove 
how  well  the  painter  has  got  up  his  lesson.  Still  less  are  Art 
Academies  schools  for  impressing  on  the  public  mind  Layard's 
Nineveh,  Smith's  Dictionary  of  Antiquities,  Rawlinson's 
Herodotus,  and  all  the  learning  of  the  Egyptians,  the  Nine- 
vites  and  Phenicians.  The  business  of  painting  is  to  vivify 
and  beautify  what  we  do  know,  and  not  to  cram  into  us  a 
knowledge  of  facts  which  we  do  not  know.  The  business  of  the 
painter  is  not  to  compose  small  romances,  but  to  clothe  with 
life  and  grace  the  sights  and  conceptions  which  are  familiar 
to  us.  It  is  not  the  function  of  art  to  produce  a  photographic 
resemblance  of  the  common,  simply  that  men  may  say,  "It 
is  almost  as  good  as  a  photograph."  It  is  not  the  duty  of  the 
painter  to  put  into  elaborate  form  what  is  uncommon,  droll, 
and  unintelligible;  he  has  to  put  into  permanent  shape  the 
beautiful,  the  noble,  the  suggestive. 

The  nineteenth-century  mania  for  Exhibitions  seems  to 


346  MEMORIES  AND  THOUGHTS 

blind  the  painter,  the  critic,  the  public  to  some  of  the  simplest 
truisms  in  the  philosophy  of  art.  A  picture,  by  the  nature 
of  the  case,  is  always  en  evidence  in  the  place  where  it  is, 
acquires  or  creates  a  certain  genius  loci,  and  becomes  there- 
fore part  of  the  instinctive  life  of  those  who  dwell  in  its 
presence.  We  cannot  shut  up  a  picture  and  put  it  away  in 
our  shelves  as  we  do  a  book  ;  we  cannot  play  it  over  again 
as  the  mood  takes  us,  just  as  we  can  with  a  piece  of  music. 
There  it  stands  for  ever  opposite  to  us  like  a  Palace  or  Cathe- 
dral, continually  reiterating  the  same  impression.  For  this 
reason,  drollery,  riddles,  anecdotes,  novelettes,  sentimentali- 
ties on  canvas,  are  so  horribly  irritating.  Does  the  painter  of 
"Two  of  a  Pair,"  "Her  Favourite  Flower,"  "How  happy  I 
could  be  with  either,"  "Sterne  and  the  dead  Jackass," 
"Bugs  in  a  Rug,"  "Satan  addressing  the  Fallen  Spirits  in 
Pandemonium,"  "The  Drunkard's  Home,"  "Pharaoh's 
Daughter  at  Five  o'clock  Tea" — do  the  authors  of  these 
very  quaint,  moral,  tearful,  or  learned  compositions  ever  ask 
themselves  this  question  —  "When  the  Exhibition  is  over,  will 
the  buyer  like  to  sit  down  day  by  day  and  listen  to  the  same 
jest,  the  same  story,  the  same  bit  of  sapient  morality,  or 
curious  bit  of  learning?"  A  slight  tale,  a  good  anecdote,  an 
odd  incident,  are  all  very  well  once  in  a  way ;  in  a  book,  over 
the  dinner-table,  in  an  idle  hour.  But  to  have  them  eternally 
dinned  into  us  is  maddening.  "  Evil  communications  corrupt 
good  manners"  is  a  grand  and  true  saying.  But  who  could 
bear  to  have  it  always  staring  at  one  over  the  fireplace,  or 
shouted  into  our  ears  by  the  public  bellman  ?  Falstaff  him- 
self would  drive  one  crazy,  if  we  had  to  listen  to  Henry  IV. 
every  time  we  took  a  seat  at  the  dinner-table.  If  a  comic 
picture  is  good  art,  why  not  a  comic  building,  a  droll  town- 
hall,  a  laughable  palace,  with  "  surprise  "  windows  and  doors, 
and  a  labyrinth  or  "  maze  "  in  the  basement  ?  And,  if  the 


PICTURE  EXHIBITIONS  347 

queer  and  the  sentimental  be  the  weakness  of  our  English 
friends,  what  shall  we  say  to  the  French  painter  who  eternises 
on  canvas  some  rhodomontade  fit  for  an  anarchist  orator,  or 
a  double  entendre  that  would  cause  a  blush  at  a  cafe  chantant  ? 
A  silly,  tedious,  vicious  picture  is  infinitely  worse  than  a  silly, 
tedious,  vicious  song.  The  song,  if  it  chance  to  pollute  or 
weary  our  ears,  is  gone  in  an  hour,  and  never  need  offend  us 
again.  The  picture,  like  the  poor,  we  have  always  with  us 
—  for  ever  jesting,  weeping,  moralising,  it  may  be  screaming 
or  blaspheming,  on  the  one  monotonous  note. 

Perpetual  picture  exhibitions,  picture  competitions,  and 
the  gabble  about  "art  for  art,"  are  making  us  forget  these 
simple,  eternal  truths.  In  all  great  ages  of  art  the  painter 
was  guided  by  the  poet,  the  thinker,  the  spiritual  and  temporal 
chiefs  of  the  society  he  lived  in.  In  all  great  ages  of  art,  the 
painter  was  guided  by  serious  canons  in  his  choice  of  subject ; 
and  his  work  was  an  affair  of  religious  and  public  concern. 
In  no  great  age  of  art  were  there  ever  art  competitions  or 
May  picture-hunts.  The  painter  felt  that  he  had  to  dignify, 
beautify,  purify  human  life,  to  give  form  and  colour  to  the 
deepest  ideals  of  his  time.  His  subjects  were  made  for  him 
by  an  organised  public  opinion,  expressed  and  enforced  by 
the  best  minds  of  the  age.  And  his  subjects  were  always 
simple,  familiar,  noble,  traditional,  and  beautiful. 


NUDE   STUDIES 

1885 

THIS  question  raises  some  of  the  most  subtle  problems  in 
manners  and  in  art,  the  difficulties  of  which  have  hardly  yet 
been  grasped  by  public  controversy.  Much  is  due  to  the 
prejudices  of  well-meaning  but  uncultured  people,  in  whose 
name  the  "British  Matron"  is  privileged  to  talk  nonsense. 
But  she  will  hardly  be  convinced  by  such  crude  pleas  for 
"the  natural"  as  those  of  a  "British  Girl";  and  the  petulant 
retorts  of  the  art  world  do  not  quite  satisfy  the  thoughtful 
mind.  I  venture  to  think  that  the  outcries  of  worthy  ignorant 
women  deserve  respectful  attention  and  some  sincere  attempt 
to  put  this  matter  on  a  sounder  footing.  And  I  perceive  a 
tendency  in  modern  art  to  assert  its  liberty  in  a  violent  way 
and  to  claim  what,  by  canons  of  true  art,  is  illegitimate  ground. 

It  is  certain  that  in  this  matter  of  clothes  there  may  be 
found  in  art,  on  the  stage,  and  in  society  cases  of  license 
which  are  bad  by  deliberate  intention.  It  is  the  duty  of  high 
art  to  clear  itself  of  any  such  miserable  association,  and  it  is 
the  task  of  morality  to  place  the  canons  of  purity  on  a  rational 
and  sure  foundation.  Because,  in  the  matter  of  the  draped 
and  the  undraped  there  is  a  very  real  abuse,  it  does  not  follow 
that  all  modes  of  the  undraped  are  bad;  neither  does  it 
follow  that  all  modes  are  good.  Let  me  try,  if  it  be  possi- 
ble, to  make  the  matter  clear  in  language  fitting  pueris  vir- 
ginibusque. 

What  is  it  that  constitutes  decency  in  dress?  Clearly 

348 


NUDE   STUDIES  349 

nothing  but  habit;  the  custom  of  the  particular  society  or 
subject-matter  concerned  —  in  ordinary  language,  conven- 
tion. This  seems  strange  to  some  people;  but  it  is  most 
certainly  true  that  there  is  no  absolute  rule  as  to  what  drapery 
is  or  is  not  decent.  Even  in  the  same  society  the  conditions 
vary  enormously.  Use  and  custom  alone  determine  the 
becoming.  A  Turkish  lady  is  shocked  if  a  strange  man  sees 
her  without  a  yashmak  and  a  monstrous  bundle  of  wraps. 
So  conventional  is  this  covering  of  the  face  that  a  Mussul- 
man peasant  woman  surprised  in  the  field  will  often  veil  it 
with  her  only  petticoat.  Travellers  tell  us  that  a  well-bred 
African  woman  blushes  to  be  seen  for  the  first  time  in  clothes. 
The  unusual  use  of  clothing  appears  to  her  scarcely  decent. 
Custom,  habit,  and  convention  decide  the  matter  among  our- 
selves. A  pure  cottage  girl  in  Connemara,  who  sleeps  in  a 
room  with  men  and  never  owned  stockings,  would  feel  un- 
easy in  the  ball  dress  of  a  princess.  The  princess  would 
almost  suffer  death  rather  than  share  her  cottage  for  a  week. 
If  the  daughters  of  Leonidas  went  to  a  Drawing  Room  at 
Buckingham  Palace  in  their  Spartan  tunics  they  would  prob- 
ably cause  as  great  a  flutter  as  they  would  feel  themselves. 
No  one  would  expect  a  hospital  nurse  to  do  what  hundreds 
of  innocent  girls  do  in  a  pantomime ;  but  the  danseuse,  again, 
would  hardly  submit  to  the  unsparing  revelations  of  a  surgical 
ward.  Honi  soit  is  the  sole  and  paramount  rule;  but  then 
this  depends  on  certain  conventional  practices  being  respected. 
Now,  is  it  a  custom  of  civilised  society  to  admit  in  art  an 
absence  of  drapery  which  would  now  be  intolerable  in  life? 
Most  certainly  it  is;  the  practice  of  the  best  men,  of  the 
purest  genius,  agreeing  with  the  good  sense  of  the  cultivated 
world,  has  sanctioned  it  for  centuries  in  ancient  and  in 
modern  times.  But,  just  as  certainly,  it  is  sanctioned  under 
definite  conventional  terms.  The  true  question  is,  Have 


350  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

these  conventional  terms  been  uniformly  respected  by  modern 
art  ?  I  venture  to  think  they  have  not  been  perfectly  observed ; 
and  it  is  on  this  ground  that  I  wish  to  speak.  The  terms  upon 
which  the  undraped  is  a  noble  subject  of  art  are  these  —  (i)  a 
manifest  appeal  to  the  love  of  beauty,  and  not  to  appetite; 
(2)  an  ideal  presentation,  and  not  a  literal  transcript  of  in- 
dividual fact ;  a  generalisation  in  the  imagination,  and  not 
a  photographic  record  of  the  particular;  (3)  the  observance 
of  certain  special  artistic  conventions  as  old  as  Praxiteles. 

The  representation  of  the  bare  limbs  and  skin  of  man  is 
not  only  a  worthy  subject  of  art,  but  is  immeasurably  above 
any  other  form  of  art  whatever.  Not  only  is  the  human  form 
and  complexion  the  most  exquisitely  lovely  thing  in  nature, 
but  the  subtle  difficulties  of  painting  it  are  so  great,  and  the 
delight  which  it  gives  us  when  successful  is  so  intense,  that 
every  other  kind  of  art  is  distinctly  humbler  in  aim.  Much 
of  the  irritation  which  a  " study"  produces  in  the  ignorant  is 
due  to  the  fact  that  the  noble  painting  of  the  form  is  an 
almost  extinct  art.  If  we  compare  a  gallery  of  ancient 
masters  with  Burlington  House  we  shall  see  in  the  ancients 
infinitely  more  careful  painting  of  the  flesh.  I  do  not  mean 
that  we  see  so  many  Venuses,  Eves,  and  nymphs,  but  we  see 
figures  partly  undraped,  an  arm  or  a  foot  absolutely  true  and 
living,  the  blood  coursing  beneath  the  quivering  skin,  the 
glow  of  health  and  purity  with  inimitable  life  before  our 
eyes.  The  difference  is  this :  —  In  a  modern  gallery,  with 
half-a-dozen  adventurous  "studies,"  the  like  of  which  are  not 
to  be  found  in  the  National  Gallery  or  the  Louvre  from  end 
to  end,  we  have  a  waxy,  conventional  painting  of  the  skin 
wherever  an  arm,  a  bust,  or  a  foot  protrudes  from  those 
masses  of  "Liberty"  costumes  whereon  the  serious  attention 
of  the  painter  is  bestowed.  There  seem  hardly  ten  men  in 
England  who  can  draw  the  figure,  and  not  one  who  can  paint 


NUDE   STUDIES  351 

flesh,  with  entire  mastery.  Now,  it  needs  a  veritable  master 
to  paint  a  Venus  or  a  Phryne  emerging  from  the  bath.  Even 
the  President  himself  dipped  his  magnificent  creature  in 
walnut  juice ;  and  Mr.  Poynter's  bather  is  a  fine,  firm,  true, 
but  not  a  magnificent  creature.  A  Venus,  an  Eve,  or  a 
bather  of  life  size  is  h'ke  an  epic  poem  —  it  is  either  a  sublime 
success,  or  nothing.  Would  that  we  saw  in  our  galleries 
more  of  that  marvellous  texture  and  modeUing  of  limb  which, 
if  it  reach  its  highest  point  in  Titian's  Venus  of  the  Tribune 
and  his  Flora,  is  perpetually  present  in  a  St.  Sebastian  or  a 
Bacchus,  in  the  portrait  of  a  Venetian  lady,  or  it  may  be  in 
the  feet  of  a  Madonna  in  glory. 

Perhaps  our  painters  would  educate  the  public  better  if 
they  devoted  themselves  to  the  more  constant  painting  of  the 
form,  and  presented  it  in  somewhat  less  ambitious  modes. 
When  a  man  can  paint  feet  and  hands  like  Raphael,  or  the 
bust  like  Titian,  or  the  limbs  of  a  Sebastian  like  Francia,  he 
may  adventure  on  a  tour  de  force  of  bathers  and  dancers ;  but 
he  had  better  wait  till  then.  And  always  let  him  remember 
his  limits  of  "ideal  beauty"  and  "conventional  practice." 
It  is  laughable  enough  to  see  a  poor,  dear  old  "goody"  sup- 
posing that  painters  present  the  form  as  they  see  it.  It  is 
nearly  as  laughable  to  see  a  young  girl  supposing  there  is  no 
harm  in  anything  "natural."  Why,  my  dear  "goody"  and 
my  dear  young  lady,  if  painters  were  photographers  and  not 
painters,  neither  you  nor  any  decent  man  or  woman  could 
stay  in  Burlington  House  ten  minutes.  But  I  am  far  from 
clear  that  our  painters  are  quite  as  careful  as  they  might  be 
to  observe  the  conditions  of  "ideal  beauty"  and  "conventional 
practice."  Abroad  it  is  perfectly  certain  that  neither  condi- 
tion is  respected.  The  Haidees,  Nanas,  "le  modele  qui  se 
gratte"  of  a  French  Salon  deliberately  violate  every  one  of 
the  three  canons  of  true  art.  And  much  work  of  the  Van 


352  MEMORIES   AND  THOUGHTS 

Beers  and  their  school  belongs  to  the  class  of  art  against 
which  a  late  Lord  Chancellor  directed  a  useful  Act.  In  the 
face  of  such  tendencies  in  modem  art  it  is  the  duty  of  all 
honourable  men  who  love  art  truly  to  reject  the  smallest  con- 
cession to  the  accursed  thing. 

Convention,  and  convention  alone,  is  the  measure  of  the 
decent  where  motive  and  intention  are  perfectly  pure.  Neither 
painters  nor  critics  recognise  this  quite  as  patiently  as  they 
should.  An  artist,  burning  often  with  pure  love  of  his  art, 
defies  the  conventions,  and  he  outrages  worthy  people.  It 
is  quite  true  that  conventions  may  need  to  be  altered;  but 
they  must  be  altered  slowly  and  by  imperceptible  degrees, 
or  morality  itself  will  suffer.  It  is  also  true  that  the  ignorant 
and  the  inexperienced  are  often  shocked  by  habits  which  to 
the  experienced  are  mere  conventions.  A  modest  person  who 
had  been  brought  up  by  a  Quaker  aunt,  and  had  never  been 
in  a  ballroom,  a  theatre,  or  a  picture  gallery,  would  be  pained 
by  what  to  persons  quite  as  modest,  who  were  familiar  with 
them,  would  seem  innocent  and  proper  conventions.  Hence 
when  an  artist  introduces  a  new  practice  he  does  it  at  his 
own  peril.  Consummate  art  will  probably  justify  him ;  but, 
as  the  conventions  of  artistic  morality  are  not  his  to  make, 
but  are  the  product  of  society  itself  and  public  opinion,  his 
novelty  may  justly  offend ;  and  not  the  ignorant  alone,  for 
wantonly  to  offend  the  ignorant  is  justly  to  offend  the  wise. 

It  was  the  practice  of  the  great  masters  to  paint  the  male 
form  quite  as  much  as  the  female,  to  resort  to  the  wholly  un- 
draped  very  sparingly,  and  rarely  to  paint  a  picture  at  all 
without  the  most  exquisite  modelling  of  some  uncovered 
limbs.  Under  the  baneful  influence  of  the  French  Salon 
our  painters  are  forsaking  these  time-honoured  habits.  The 
male  torso  is  wholly  out  of  fashion,  though  there  are  some 
who  hold  that  Adam  was  hardly  inferior  to  Eve  in  beauty. 


NUDE   STUDIES  353 

The  hands,  neck,  and  uncovered  limbs  in  subject-pieces  are 
daily  becoming  more  and  more  accessories.  The  undraped 
pieces  are  always  "studies,"  and  usually  simple  baigneuses. 
Did  he  of  "the  silver-pointed  pencil"  paint  "studies"  on 
canvas  ?  Did  the  greatest  master  of  flesh-painting  that  ever 
lived  occupy  his  time  with  a  succession  of  baigneuses?  I 
trow  the  Ariadne  in  Trafalgar  Square  is  worth  a  wilderness 
of  "studies";  it  belongs  to  a  wholly  different  domain  of  art. 
There  is  one  specific  convention  on  which  I  must  be 
precise,  however  reserved  be  the  words  I  shall  use.  From 
Giotto  down  to  Ingres  I  venture  to  assert  that  the  mysteries 
of  the  form  were  never  displayed  in  painting  as  definitely  as 
they  were  in  Greek  sculpture.  I  know  nearly  every  gallery 
in  Europe,  and  I  cannot  recall  a  single  work  of  a  grand  scale 
and  of  the  best  time  in  which  this  is  done.  The  art  of  the 
painter  was  lavished  in  bathing  the  undraped  form  with  a 
subtle  reserve  of  shadow,  girdle,  or  tress.  Even  when  such 
mighty  masters  of  flesh  tones  as  Titian,  Correggio,  or  Rubens 
revelled  in  the  full  luxuriance  of  their  imagination,  in  the 
Venus  of  the  Tribune,  of  the  National  Gallery,  or  in  the 
Judgment  of  Paris,  they  respected  this  condition.  Within  a 
generation  the  French  school  have  rejected  it.  They  treated 
the  form  in  painting  as  the  Greeks  treated  it  in  sculpture, 
and  a  nymph  stood  forth  on  canvas  in  the  statuesque  simplicity 
of  a  marble  Venus.  I  believe  that  the  first  picture  of  European 
repute  in  which  this  was  done  was  the  exquisite  "Source"  of 
Ingres.  The  virginal  purity  of  that  ethereal  creation  created 
a  new  type  in  art,  which  in  the  hands  of  weaker  men  violated 
the  old  conventions  while  it  attempted  to  introduce  a  new 
one.  The  reserve  which  Titian  had  obtained  by  purely 
pictorial  resources  the  new  school  of  Ingres  sought  by  exag- 
gerating the  convention  of  the  Greek  sculptors.  I  take  the 
Diadumene,  a  masterly,  a  pure  "study,"  but  in  its  flesh  tints 

2  A 


354  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

not  a  very  beautiful  work,  and  I  compare  it  with  the  Venus 
of  the  Tribune.  Now  the  Venus,  besides  being  beautiful 
beyond  the  dreams  of  poetry,  is  as  absolutely  true  as  it  is 
mysterious  in  its  grace.  The  Diadumene  is  not  mysterious 
at  all,  and  yet  is  not  real.  Realism  carried  to  that  point,  and 
yet  blurred  by  a  convention  violent  in  itself  and  comparatively 
new  in  the  art  of  painting,  has  a  weak  spot  somewhere.  When 
painters  attempt  violently  to  alter  recognised  conventions  they 
will  cause  irritation  in  the  public.  Convention  is  the  prosody 
of  art.  And  while  the  ignorant  must  be  taught  to  accept  con- 
vention, the  artists  must  learn  to  respect  it. 


A   MORNING   IN  THE  GALLERIES 


Now  that  I  have  retired  to  a  quiet  life  in  a  beautiful  coun- 
try I  am  occupied  with  Nature  more  than  with  Art  ;  and  it 
is  only  with  a  wrench  that  I  can  leave  the  roses  and  lilies 
for  the  smoke  of  town.  But,  as  I  do  not  wish  to  fall  quite 
out  of  the  modern  movement,  I  take  a  look  in  now  and  then 
at  the  May  shows,  and  had  asked  my  friend  Van  Dyke,  one 
of  the  young  lions  of  the  New  Gallery,  to  point  out  what 
was  best  to  be  seen.  He  took  me  straight  up  to  the  Lycidas, 
the  great  sensation  of  the  year.  "There,"  said  he,  eagerly, 
"there  is  true  Art.  What  a  noble  form!  What  a  grand 
pose  !  What  subtle  grace  in  those  curves  of  the  leg  !  What 
dignity  in  those  uplifted  arms  !  It  might  be  the  young  ath- 
lete who  sat  to  Pheidias  for  the  Parthenon  metopes.  And 
those  old  Philistines  at  Burlington  House  made  a  'record' 
in  stupidity  when  they  rejected  —  actually  rejected  —  one  of 
the  purest  masterpieces  of  our  time!" 

"But  is  it  beautiful?"  I  asked  in  my  innocence. 

"Beautiful?"  he  said  quite  warmly,  "we  don't  go  in  for 
beauty  nowadays.  We  want  truth,  not  beauty.  Art  has 
nothing  to  do  with  beauty.  The  aim  of  Art  is  to  be  real. 
If  you  want  to  see  a  real  spinal  column,  an  honest  iliac 
muscle,  a  genuine  biceps,  and  all  ten  tendons  of  the  extensor 
frankly  displayed,  there  you  have  them." 

"Well  !"  I  said,  humbly,  "I  am  no  anatomist,  and  I  dare- 

355 


356  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

say  this  is  all  as  it  looks  on  the  dissecting  table.  But  what 
puzzles  me  are  those  ten  fingers  all  held  up  in  a  row.  What 
does  it  mean  ?  Is  Lycidas  a  Neapolitan  lazzarone  playing  at 
mora?  What  is  the  story?" 

"Oh!"  said  he,  "a  great  piece  of  truth  in  Art  does  not 
need  any  story.  It  is  its  own  meaning.  Perhaps  Lycidas 
is  what  the  Boers  call  a  Hands-upper;  he  seems  to  be  saying 
'Don't  shoot,  I  give  in.'  He  looks  rather  down  on  his  luck, 
as  if  he  has  had  enough.  But  see  how  truly  Greek  is  the 
vitality  of  those  limbs !  How  daring  is  the  realism  of  those 
tendons!  How  defiant  of  conventions  is  the  frankness  of 
the  pose!" 

"Thank  you,"  I  said,  "for  your  lesson  in  Art.  If  I  had 
come  here  alone  I  should  have  taken  it  for  a  scraggy  youth 
in  an  ungainly  attitude  —  a  sort  of  naked  'man  Friday,' 
startled  by  the  footprints  of  cannibals  on  the  shore." 

As  I  spoke  we  were  joined  by  an  old  friend  of  my  own,  a 
certain  Sir  Visto,  rather  a  testy  amateur  of  the  old  school, 
who  had  seen  all  the  galleries  in  Europe  and  often  dined 
with  the  R.A's. 

"You  call  that  scare-crow  Art?"  he  said.  "Why,  it  is  a 
mere  cast  from  a  very  ill-shapen  pugilist.  And  the  attitude 
is  only  fit  for  a  Fiji  Islander's  wooden  idol." 

"My  young  friend  here,"  I  said,  "has  been  telling  me  of 
the  magnificent  modelling  of  the  back,  the  ribs,  and  the 
thighs.  Isn't  there  great  merit  in  the  way  these  muscles 
stand  out  clean  and  taut?" 

"Well?"  said  Visto,  "I  grant  him  there  is  good  modelling 
in  the  trunk.  The  pectoral  muscles  are  well  marked,  and 
the  scapula  shows  power,  crude  as  it  looks.  But  just  look  at 
those  saucers  above  the  collar-bones.  The  arms  are  those  of 
an  Egyptian  mummy,  and  can  anything  be  more  spidery  than 
those  skinny  thighs  and  calves?" 


A  MORNING   IN  THE   GALLERIES  357 

"Truth,  fact,  realism,"  cried  Van  Dyke  with  warmth. 
"Lycidas  is  not  intended  to  be  pretty.  He  is  not  one  of  your 
androgynous  hermaphrodites,  but  a  man  jn  fighting  condi- 
tion, trained  to  the  last  ounce,  and  no  girls'  fancy  man." 

"Oh !  I  grant  you  he  is  a  man,  plain  enough  and  no  mis- 
take ;  he  would  serve  on  a  stand  for  a  lesson  in  anatomy  at  a 
hospital." 

"Is  not  that  the  highest  praise?"  asked  Van  Dyke.  "He 
is  meant  to  teach,  to  display,  to  exhibit  fact,  not  to  be  a 
type  of  prettiness." 

"Oh!  dear  no!  he  is  a  type  of  ugliness.  He  is  a  mere 
cast,  or  facsimile,  of  an  emaciated  bruiser,  with  his  four 
limbs  stuck  apart  like  a  child's  doll  undressed.  Look  at  his 
flat  splay  feet,  the  corns  on  his  long  toes,  and  the  bunion  of 
the  right  foot  joint.  Look  at  him  from  behind,  and  you  will 
see  a  big  letter  W  stuck  upon  a  pair  of  tongs." 

"Well!"  said  Van  Dyke  rather  peevishly,  "we  have 
happily  got  rid  of  the  conventional  Pyramid  in  a  work  of 
sculpture,  and  all  the  stale  nonsense  about  symmetry  in 
composition,  a  right  arm  to  balance  a.  left  leg,  and  the  centre 
of  gravity  to  fall  in  the  middle  of  the  base." 

"I  grant  you,"  said  Visto,  "there  is  neither  symmetry,  nor 
balance,  nor  centre  of  gravity  about  Lycidas.  I  was  always 
taught  that  the  first  condition  of  a  statue  is,  that  it  has  to  be 
viewed  all  round  in  every  position.  It  should  have  at  least 
eight  characteristic  points  of  view  —  and  all  eight  ought  to 
be  at  once  impressive  and  graceful.  But  in  Lycidas  all  points 
of  view  are  equally  ugly,  ungainly,  and  unmeaning." 

"Ugly,  ungainly,  as  you  please,"  cried  Van  Dyke,  "but 
true  to  fact.  Art  needs  no  meaning.  It  does  not  mean  any- 
thing, except  'So  it  is  —  /  see  it  so!1" 

"Ho!  ho!"  laughed  Visto,  — " truth,  fact,  realism! 
How  does  Lycidas  stand?  You  know,  dear  boy,  that  it  is 


358  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

only  a  doll,  a  wax  model,  with  wooden  supports  inside. 
Lycidas  could  not  be  executed  in  marble,  or  even  in  bronze, 
or  any  permanent  material.  It  is  only  that  it  is  a  patchwork 
of  wood  and  wax,  that  he  can  stand  steady  on  his  big  feet. 
I  suppose  that  is  why  they  are  made  so  long  and  ugly.  Show 
me  a  work  of  Pheidias,  Polyclitus,  Lysippus,  Praxiteles,  or 
Agasias  —  marble  or  bronze  —  where  a  whole  figure  stands 
unsupported  on  its  feet  alone.  Look  at  any  Apollo,  Aphro- 
dite, Hermes,  the  Diadumenos,  Doryphoros,  Apoxyomenos, 
Niobid,  Artemis,  Satyr,  Antinous,  Heracles  —  they  all  have 
leg  supports,  or  they  would  not  stand.  Why,  even  the 
'Borghese  warrior'  of  the  Louvre,  with  its  outstretched  legs 
apart,  has  to  rest  upon  a  tree  stump.  Your  Lycidas  may 
look  more  natural,  just  because  it  is  a  doll  —  a  toy.  Talk 
about  truth.  It  is  a  fraud;  a  thing  stuck  together  to  look 
like  bronze,  when  we  all  know  it  could  not  be  really  made  in 
bronze  at  all." 

But  here  I  thought  the  discussion  was  getting  rather  warm, 
for  this  sally  had  knocked  Van  Dyke  out  of  time.  So  I  pro- 
posed that  we  should  all  walk  round  to  Piccadilly  and  see 
what  the  R.A.'s  had  to  show  us. 

"We  have  got  rid  of  all  these  antiquated  conventions  about 
Greek  types,"  muttered  Van  Dyke  doggedly;  "what  matters 
what  Lysippus  and  Praxiteles  did?  Art  is  free,  and  makes 
its  own  laws  as  it  grows  with  new  ideas  and  younger  men." 

"Stay  for  five  minutes,"  cried  Visto,  "and  have  a  look  at 
a  bit  of  real  Art,  in  that  group  named  Venus  at  her  Toilette 
with  Cupid.  Now  there  is  beauty,  grace,  symmetry,  truth 
all  together.  It  has  the  subtle  secret  of  the  Renascence,  the 
joy  of  life,  ideal  charm!" 

"Ah!"  I  said,  "by  the  Grand  Old  Man  of  Italian  art, 
who  has  done  more  to  keep  alive  the  flame  of  Tuscan  glory 
than  any  living  amateur.  It  is  a  wonderful  tour  de  force] 


A  MORNING   IN   THE   GALLERIES  359 

but  Michael  Angelo  and  Titian  continued  to  work  to  an  even 
greater  age.  Art  is  the  most  vivifying  force  in  Nature,  and 
makes  the  healthy  and  the  happy  old  ever  young !" 

"Yes!"  said  Visto,  "my  old  friend,  Wemyss,  I  remember, 
was  the  contemporary  of  John  Ruskin  at  Christ  Church, 
and  he  is  still  carrying  on  some  of  the  best  traditions  of  art 
judgment,  which  Ruskin  has  long  ceased  to  inspire.  But 
let  me  tell  you  that  the  Venus  here  is  not  only  an  astonishing 
tour  de  force,  but  is  in  itself  a  fine,  pure,  and  original  com- 
position, harmoniously  conceived ;  lovely  in  all  its  parts,  and 
as  a  whole." 

"Oh !  I  grant  you  it  is  pretty,  refined ;  well,  say,  beautiful, 
if  you  like,"  grumbled  Van  Dyke,  "for  those  who  care  for 
beauty  in  Art.  I  daresay  it  reminds  people  of  the  old  artists' 
idea  about  grace  and  that  sort  of  thing." 

"Can  anything  be  more  useful  to-day  than  such  a  re- 
minder?" asked  Visto. 

"Come  to  Burlington  House,"  said  I,  "and  as  we  walk 
along,  Van  Dyke  shall  tell  us  why  these  young  fellows  make 
such  a  dead  set  at  Beauty,  and  why  they  will  have  it  that 
the  business  of  Art  is  to  hold  up  the  mirror  to  ugliness,  to 
portray  nothing  that  is  not  common,  queer,  or  even  gro- 
tesque." 

"Why!"  broke  out  Van  Dyke,  "we  are  all  sick  of  these 
tea-tray  prettinesses  of  'The  Thames  at  Dawn,'  'Pine  Woods 
at  Sunset,'  'Meadows  in  May,'  'June  Blossoms,'  and  all  the 
namby-pamby  goddesses,  nymphs,  'blue  eyes'  and  'golden 
locks,'  which  are  very  well  on  a  bonbon  box  for  a  girl,  but 
disgust  grown  men  in  a  picture  gallery.  Art  should  be  real, 
not  conventional;  and  of  all  things  the  most  fatal  to  Art  is 
that  which  pleases  the  eye.  The  painter  has  to  show  people 
what  they  never  saw  and  never  could  see  —  what  he  sees,  and 
as  he  sees  it.  It  does  not  matter  what  it  is  —  a  brick  wall,  a 


360  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

blind  beggar,  a  hog,  a  dunghill  —  all  are  equally  the  subject 
of  Art,  when  the  artist  has  looked  at  them  till  his  soul  has 
grown  into  them,  and  they  have  grown  into  his  soul.  The 
new  rule  is  —  Paint  just  what  you  see,  but  take  care  that  it  is 
what  nobody  sees  but  yourself,  and  what  nobody  could  like 
if  he  did  see  it.  The  business  of  Art  is  to  shake  up  your 
Philistines,  your  Bottles,  and  Mrs.  Grundys  out  of  their  hum- 
drum lives,  to  teach  them  how  queer  and  how  nasty  the  world 
can  be,  and  often  is." 

"You  want  us  all  to  go  'slumming'  in  a  picture  gallery?" 
said  Visto.  "You  can't  all  be  Bernard  Shaws,  my  dear 
boy,  and  paint  paradoxes  and  dirt  all  day  long.  Is  there 
no  alternative  between  weak  prettiness  and  coarse  realism  ? 
Because  some  painters  are  finikin,  some  babyish,  and  some 
academic,  is  High  Art  to  be  limited  to  ditchwater  and  rags? 
If  we  are  sick  of  strawberry  cream  and  truffles,  we  don't 
want  to  be  stuffed  with  garlic  and  tripe." 

"It  does  not  matter  what  you  paint,"  said  Van  Dyke,  "the 
only  thing  that  matters  is,  how  you  paint.  A  picture  is  not 
intended  to  please  —  ought  not  to  please  the  person  looking 
at  it.  It  is  intended  to  show  what  clever  things  the  painter 
could  do  with  his  brush.  Brush-work  is  the  beginning, 
middle,  and  end  of  a  picture.  If  a  picture  interests  the  public 
by  its  subject,  or  is  beautiful  as  an  object  to  view,  so  far  it 
draws  off  attention  from  the  cleverness  of  the  painter,  and 
thereby  ceases  to  be  sincere  Art." 

"One  would  think  a  painter  was  an  acrobat,"  said  Visto, 
"and  his  only  aim  was  to  show  you  what  astonishing  tricks 
he  could  play  with  his  fingers.  For  my  part,  I  don't  care, 
as  the  old  Duke  used  to  say,  'a  twopenny  d — n'  for  a  painter's 
tricks.  What  I  want  is  a  beautiful  work  and  fine  imagina- 
tion." 

"Imagination!"    said  Van  Dyke.     "We  don't  want   to 


A  MORNING   IN  THE   GALLERIES  361 

imagine  things.  We  want  to  reproduce  them  —  show  them 
just  as  we  see  them.  Imagination  is  the  ruin  of  Art !  We 
painters  have  to  make  things  look  just  as  they  are." 

"Why,  that  is  what  photographers  have  to  do !  And  they 
beat  you  realists  hollow  at  it !  Is  a  Kodak  snap-shot  of  a 
kitchenmaid  taken  in  my  backyard,  Art?  It  certainly  re- 
produces faithfully  the  look  of  a  very  commonplace 
object." 

"It  would  be  Art  if  the  painter  could  make  the  backyard 
as  absolutely  true  to  fact  as  the  photograph,  adding  colour, 
chiaroscuro,  and  tone.  Let  him  get  his  '  values '  right  —  and 
all  is  right!" 

"Surely,"  I  murmured,  "it  would  be  a  dull  piece  to  hang 
over  one's  dinner-table." 

"This  cursed  photography,"  Sir  Visto  broke  in,  "has  been 
the  death  of  Art.  It  has  shown  artists  how  infinitely  subtle 
and  various  are  the  facts  in  the  simplest  and  commonest 
object.  A  bootmaker  puts  his  own  ugly  mug  on  his  trade 
card.  Soaps,  cigars,  whiskies,  and  corsets  drench  us  with 
photographs  till  life  has  become  a  sort  of  revolving  panorama 
of  commonplace,  crudely  realised  in  all  its  naked  vulgarity 
and  dulness.  We  live  in  a  photographic  inferno ;  and  now 
Art  thinks  it  chic  to  be  equally  literal  and  tedious." 

By  this  time  we  had  reached  Burlington  House,  and  I 
hoped  to  have  a  less  lively  debate.  Sir  Visto  took  us  straight 
into  the  large  room  and  stood  before  The  Finding  of  Moses, 
by  Sir  L.  Alma-Tadema.  "There,"  said  he,  "is  a  fine  sub- 
ject finely  treated.  We  want  no  catalogue  to  tell  us  what  it 
represents.  Any  one  who  has  ever  read  or  heard  of  the  de- 
lightful idyll  in  2nd  of  Exodus  sees  at  once  that  it  is  Pharaoh's 
daughter  returning  from  the  bath,  and  bringing  the  baby  in 
his  ark.  The  composition,  the  local  colouring,  the  archaic 
'properties'  and  costumes  are  all  those  of  a  master.  How 


362  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

ridiculous  it  was  of  Ruskin  to  tell  us  Alma-Tadema  always 
painted  twilight !  Is  not  this  sunlight,  and  sunlight  in  Egypt  ? 
A  fine  picture !  a  fine  conception ! " 

"It  has  too  much  beauty,  elegance,  and  harmony  for  me," 
growled  Van  Dyke.  "Why  are  all  the  girls  so  pretty,  and  so 
fair  of  skin?  There  is  nothing  prehistoric,  barbaric,  cruel, 
ghastly  about  the  scene  —  nothing  to  remind  you  of  the 
ferocious  edict  of  Pharaoh  and  the  leader  who  was  one  day 
to  drown  him  in  the  Red  Sea.  I  admit  it  is  beautiful,  if  that 
is  what  you  want.  It  is  too  smooth,  too  refined,  too  idyllic 
for  me." 

"  Well ! "  I  said,  "the  story  is  an  Idyll,  you  know.  Pharaoh's 
daughter  was  a  gracious  Princess,  not  a  bloodthirsty  tyrant, 
and  Moses  at  four  months  had  not  grown  to  be  the  Prophet 
of  Israel.  The  Plagues  of  Egypt  had  not  yet  begun.  And 
we  may  imagine  an  Idyll  if  we  please  by  way  of  contrast." 

"Imagination  is  the  foe  of  truth,"  said  he. 

Sir  Visto  then  led  us  up  to  the  President's  Cup  of  Tantalus, 
which  he  called  on  us  to  admire.  "Poynter,"  he  said,  "is 
always  graceful,  learned,  correct,  classical 

"Conventional  —       "  interrupted  Van  Dyke. 

"See  how  thoughtfully  every  detail  is  studied,"  said  Visto, 
not  noticing  his  young  friend,  "the  drawing  firm,  true, 
natural;  the  composition  subtle;  the  whole  atmosphere  one 
of  harmony  and  charm." 

"Why  does  the  child  in  the  transparent  shift  stretch  up  on 
her  toes  when  it  is  plain  she  can't  reach  the  other's  hand  by 
twelve  inches  at  least  ?  And  why  doesn't  the  long  girl,  in  the 
dark  robe  with  a  palm-branch  fan,  step  down  to  the  fountain 
herself?"  grumbled  Van  Dyke. 

"My  dear  boy,"  said  I,  "you  might  as  well  ask  why  did 
Keats  see  charm  in  a  '  Grecian  urn' ;  you  don't  forget  how  it 
ends,  do  you  ?  — 


A  MORNING   IN  THE   GALLERIES  363 

" '  Beauty  is  truth,  truth  beauty,  that  is  all 

Ye  know  on  earth,  and  all  ye  need  to  know.' " 

"I  can  see  neither  beauty  nor  truth,"  said  the  painter,  "in 
these  Hebes,  Ariadnes,  Nymphs,  Sapphos,  Pindars,  and  other 
machine-made  Hellenisms  which  the  Academy  seems  to  en- 
courage. They  are  crude  'academies,'  as  the  French  say, 
and  the  local  colour  and  staging  are  cheap  enough." 

"Good  work  too  often  leads  to  poor  imitation,"  I  sug- 
gested, "as  we  saw  with  Raphael  himself;  but  weak  copies 
do  not  spoil  the  value  of  a  true  master's  work." 

"Come,  now,  let  us  look  at  the  portraits,"  said  I;  "we 
shall  not  be  troubled  about  ideals  there." 

"I  don't  know  that,"  said  Van  Dyke.  "Some  of  these 
smart  women  look  as  if  their  portraits  had  been  commissioned, 
not  by  their  husbands,  but  by  their  dressmakers  as  trade 
advertisements  to  puff  their  'creations.'" 

"There  is  a  portrait,  indeed,"  cried  Sir  Visto  with  enthu- 
siasm, taking  us  to  Sargent's  Signior  Garcia,  "  power,  truth, 
character,  in  every  line.  That  is  a  portrait  which  Velasquez 
might  have  owned." 

"Agreed,  agreed,  we  shan't  quarrel  over  that,"  said 
Van  Dyke;  "Sargent  is  the  one  man  to-day  who  dominates 
both  Academy  and  New  Gallery  at  once,  the  man  who  unites 
mastery  of  his  brush  to  originality  of  conception  —  for  sheer 
skill  of  hand  he  is  matchless  and  unerring." 

"A  really  great  painter,"  said  Visto,  "when  he  chooses, 
and  does  not  play  tricks,  or  is  not  poking  fun  at  his  sitters." 

"When  does  he  not  choose?"  asked  the  painter. 

"When  he  dashes  off  a  satin  gown  in  an  hour,  and  flings 
in  a  lace  furbelow  with  three  dabs  of  his  brush." 

"And  if  he  does,"  retorted  the  painter,  "who  could  do  it  as 
well  in  a  week's  work  ?  Besides,  the  gown  and  the  furbelow 
have  to  be  looked  at  at  least  fifty  feet  away." 


364  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

"That  is  scene-painting,  not  portraiture,"  said  Visto; 
"I  quite  agree  that  he  has  a  marvellous  gift  of  technique,  but 
why  does  he  dab  his  shadows  in  with  vermilion,  and  why  are 
his  women  rouged  on  the  lips?  Hung  on  a  gallery  wall 
twenty  yards  off,  the  effect  is  brilliant,  but  I  call  it  a  trick, 
when  you  look  close  into  the  handling." 

"You  don't  mean  to  say  that  he  makes  game  of  his  own 
sitter?"  I  asked  quite  simply. 

"Well!"  said  Visto,  "you  remember  the  old  dealer  with 
the  thick  red  lips  and  the  dog  putting  out  his  tongue  to  mimic 
his  master.  And  see  how  he  bedizens  his  other  multi-million- 
aire sitters  as  if  he  said  with  his  tongue  in  his  cheek  —  What 
figures  of  fun  they  are !  But  just  come  across  to  the  grand 
Blenheim  group." 

"Surely,"  I  said,  "that  is  a  superb  piece  for  a  great  historic 
palace.  It  reminds  me  of  the  Vandykes  at  Genoa.  What  a 
grandiose  group !  The  mighty  Marlbrook,  with  the  con- 
quered banners  of  lilies  and  his  descendants  to  the  tenth  gen- 
eration. What  life  in  the  two  boys,  in  the  spaniels,  what 
bravura  in  the  whole  composition  ! " 

"Oh!  bravura  indeed,"  said  Vandyke,  "perhaps  a  trifle 
overdone,  rather  too  pompously  majestic." 

"Why  do  you  say  making  game  of  his  sitters?"  I  asked 
simply. 

"Well,"  said  Sir  Visto,  "you  see  that,  by  the  artifice  of 
placing  the  Duchess  on  the  step  and  the  Duke  below  it,  the 
impression  is  produced  that  she  is  about  ten  inches  taller  than 
her  husband.  I  have  not  the  honour  of  their  acquaintance, 
but  I  doubt  if  the  difference  is  as  much  as  that.  The  Duke 
seems  rather  embarrassed  by  the  weight  of  his  robes,  and  the 
beautiful  head  of  her  Grace  is  stuck  upon  an  elongated  neck 
which  reminds  one  of  the  new  saurian,  Diplodocus  Car- 
negii." 


A  MORNING    IN   THE   GALLERIES  365 

"Yes!"  said  Van  Dyke,  "he  has  the  defects  of  his  quali- 
ties. He  can't  resist  a  sensation;  and  the  millionaires  with 
their  big  prices  are  leading  him  to  scamp  it.  But  when  he 
tries  his  best,  as  in  his  '  Mrs.  Raphael,'  he  is  as  serious  as  Rem- 
brandt himself." 

"It's  a  fatal  snare  to  a  painter  to  become  the  rage  in  the 
smart  world,"  said  I,  "especially  when  the  smart  world  is 
vulgar  and  tasteless.  Even  Vandyke  and  Reynolds  had  too 
many  sitters,  though  their  sitters  had  beauty,  manners,  and 
refinement." 

"The  worst  of  it  is,"  said  Visto,  "that  Sargent,  like  every 
man  of  original  genius  and  splendid  success,  is  teaching  two  or 
three  other  good  men  to  imitate  his  bravura  and  his  scene- 
painting  legerdemain.  Sargent  can  make  a  satin  gown  daz- 
zling bright  with  fifteen  sweeps  of  a  thick  brush.  But  when 
other  men  try  todo  it,  they  seem  to  be  using  a  mop  or  a  broom." 

'  He  is  the  greatest  master  of  portrait  we  have  had  since 
Millais  stormed  the  town,"  said  Van  Dyke,  "and  has  an  even 
subtler  eye  for  character." 

"Yes ? "  said  Visto ;  "  but  the  genius  he  has  for  character- 
istic points  is  so  keen  that  it  betrays  him  now  and  then  to 
make  an  actual  caricature  —  I  daresay  quite  unconsciously. 
He  sees  a  trait  in  a  sitter's  face  or  figure,  and  in  his  eagerness 
to  catch  it  he  makes  it  almost  ridiculous." 

"Come  and  look  at  the  Burghers  of  Landsberg,"  said  I; 
"there  is  a  solid  piece  of  work  indeed.  Look  at  it  across  the 
Central  Hall,  and  you  might  fancy  at  a  first  glance  the  R.A.'s 
were  sitting  in  council.  One  feels  that  there  are  the  very 
Bavarian  citizens,  simple,  serious,  thoughtful  men  of  busi- 
ness —  full  of  character,  and  composed  with  skill  and  truth. 
It  is  no  bad  revival  of  the  old  Dutch  Corporation  groups  to  be 
seen  at  Haarlem,  the  Hague,  and  Amsterdam.  It  is  a  real 
success  in  a  difficult  subject." 


366  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

"Not  much  of  the  ideal,  not  quite  high  art,"  said  the  Con- 
noisseur. 

"The  ideal  be  d — d,"  laughed  the  painter;  "the  Von  has 
scored  this  time.  All  his  portraits  are  first-rate.  A  good 
many  of  the  old  gang  seem  to  have  been  waked  up.  Why, 
old  Leader  has  broken  out  in  a  new  place;  and,  after  fifty 
years  of  Surrey  pine-woods  and  commons,  silvery  Thames, 
and  such  serenities,  he  has  found  his  way  to  the  coast  and  the 
crags  of  the  Cornish  bays." 

"A  very  good  way  it  is,"  I  added,  "I  know  the  cove  well; 
and  it  has  never  been  painted  with  greater  truth  and  force. 
I  rejoice  to  see  a  veteran,  who  has  been  too  often  undervalued, 
turn  in  his  old  age  to  a  grand  subject  like  the  cliffs  of  Corn- 
wall in  a  breezy  sea." 

And  so  we  wandered  through  the  galleries,  each  of  us 
throwing  in  a  word  from  time  to  time. 

"How  tedious  it  must  be  for  those  poor  royalties,"  I  said, 
"to  have  to  stand  year  after  year  for  official  portraits  whilst 
the  artist  is  piling  on  velvet  robes,  gold  lace,  ribbons,  garters, 
crosses,  sword-tassels,  and  jack-boots !  It's  just  making 
tailors'  dummies  and  modistes'  blocks  of  the  poor  things. 
How  they  must  hate  it !  —  but  royaute  oblige" 

"There's  a  fine  thing,  indeed,"  said  Visto,  "what  life, 
manliness,  vigour,  and  breezy  air,"  taking  us  up  to  Furse's 
cub-hunting  group ;  "what  a  loss  to  art ! 

" '  Heu,  miserande  puer,  si  qua  fata  aspera  rumpas, 
Tu  Marcellus  eris ! '  " 

"Yes !  indeed,  a  cruel  loss,"  we  all  said. 

"There  are  some  good  portraits,  too,  as  well  as  Sargent's !" 
said  Visto,  "Ouless,  Shannon,  Cope,  Solomon,  Fildes,  Dick- 
see,  and  other  less-known  men.  But  the  only  man  who  can 
hold  it  with  the  great  Frenchmen  of  to-day  is  plainly  Sargent, 
and  let  us  trust  he  will  not  spoil  the  rest." 


A  MORNING    IN   THE   GALLERIES  367 

"He  won't  spoil  Ouless,"  said  I;  "he  is  as  steady,  and 
solid,  and  thorough  as  ever." 

Nor  did  we  neglect  the  ladies.  Lady  Butler,  true  and 
vigorous  as  always ;  Lucy  Kemp- Welch,  with  her  inimitable 
feeling  for  a  horse,  and  the  rest. 

"One  of  the  most  striking  facts  in  modern  art,"  I  said, 
"is  the  immense  addition  of  women  as  painters.  I  can  re- 
member in  the  'forties,  or  even  in  the  'fifties,  no  woman 
exhibited  an  oil  picture.  You  will  now  see  every  third  name 
is  that  of  a  woman,  and  in  the  water-colours  they  have  it  all 
to  themselves.  Why  is  Lady  Butler  not  R.A.,  I  wonder!" 

"Perhaps  she  declines  the  honour,"  said  the  young  rebel. 

Some  of  us  lingered  beside  the  Peter  Grahams,  the  David 
Hurrays,  the  H.  W.  B.  Davis,  MacWhirters,  Arnesly  Browns, 
Alfred  Easts,  and  the  quiet  English  rural  bits  which  are  not 
behind  their  usual  form.  But  Van  Dyke  was  all  for  Stanhope 
Forbes,  La  Thangue,  and  Clausen. 

"All  good  men,  and  sound,  pure,  manly  work,"  said  Visto; 
"but  you  need  not  suppose  that  this  is  the  last  word  in  mod- 
ern art,  dear  boy.  A  picture  has  not  only  to  be  painted  well, 
it  must  be  a  thing  that  is  worth  painting  —  interesting,  origi- 
nal, beautiful,  imaginative.  As  Tennyson  said,  you  might 
write  a  very  correct  Wordsworthian  line  —  A  Mister  Wilkin- 
son, a  clergyman  —  but  this  is  not  poetry.  An  old  man  with 
sticks,  a  sailor  boy  in  a  boat,  a  girl  feeding  a  bird,  are  honest 
facts,  which  you  may  honestly  paint  —  but  they  don't  make 
a  picture.  Millet's  Angelus  has  gone  round  the  world,  be- 
cause it  is  more  than  an  old  peasant  and  his  wife.  It  is  a 
solemn  and  pathetic  poem.  To  make  a  work  of  art  something 
more  than  'values'  is  wanted." 

"It  seems  to  me  that  the  essential  point  to  insist  upon  nowa- 
days is  the  subject  of  a  work  of  art,"  said  I.  "  Many  of  these 
subjects  that  one  can  see  on  a  road  or  a  farm  any  day  may  be 


368  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

worth  painting  in  small,  on  a  canvas  16  x  10  inches.  When  it 
comes  to  life  size,  on  a  canvas  60  x  48  inches,  as  a  great  gal- 
lery work,  it  is  taking  it  all  too  seriously.  Everything  you  see, 
painted  as  you  see  it,  true  to  nature  in  lights,  values,  and  sur- 
faces, may  be  an  honest  piece  of  handiwork,  but  it  is  not  art. 
Your  'Mister  Wilkinsons,'  in  or  out  of  the  pulpit,  bore  us. 
Your  beggar-boys,  and  sheep-cots,  and  sandhills  may  be  per- 
fectly true,  but  utterly  tedious.  Unless  you  can  show  us  some 
memorable  thing,  some  impressive  trait  in  your  beggar,  your 
sheep,  or  your  sand,  we  do  not  want  you  to  labour  the  matter 
further.  And  then,  how  sadly  the  habit  of  exhibitions  reacts 
upon  the  painter.  He  thinks  what  will  amuse  the  summer 
visitor,  not  what  will  rejoice  the  heart  to  be  upon  our  walls. 
One  of  the  cleverest  pictures  of  the  year,  which  attracts  a 
crowd  all  day  by  its  admirable  life,  its  ingenious  telling  a  com- 
plex story,  by  its  intense  'modernity,'  as  the  slang  goes, 
would  hardly  be  a  pleasant  work  to  hang  over  one's  dinner- 
table,  on  so  large  a  scale,  to  be  looked  at  day  after  day,  day 
and  night.  One's  guests  would  ask,  as  they  sat  down  to 
dinner  —  '  Well !  who  is  she  ? '  And  there  would  be  whis- 
pers all  round.  The  curse  of  exhibitions  is  that  they  encour- 
age painters  to  labour  out  silly  japes  of  their  own,  incidents 
picked  out  of  Tit-bits,  to  attract  mammas  by  some  baby  non- 
sense, and  to  attract  girls  by  mawkish  sentiment.  There  will 
always  be  a  lot  of  poor  stuff  whilst  painters  think  only  of 
their  palettes,  and  not  of  their  minds ;  whilst  they  get  their 
ideas  out  of  trashy  novels,  comic  plays,  and  watery  poems. 
Painters  want  cultivated  brains  as  well  as  nimble  fingers. 
Come,  let  us  walk  round  the  National  Gallery  before  we  go  to 
luncheon." 


AT   BURLINGTON    HOUSE 

ANCIENT  MASTERS 
1906 

As  I  stroll  round  the  pictures  shown  winter  after  winter  by 
the  Royal  Academy,  many  questions  hard  to  solve  are  wont  to 
rise  in  my  mind.  Why  is  a  visit  to  these  galleries  in  January 
"a  thing  of  beauty"  —  a  joy  for  the  hour,  if  not  "for  ever" 
—  whilst  the  visit  in  May,  however  exciting,  amusing,  tantalis- 
ing, is  always  a  bit  of  a  scramble,  leaving  one  at  dinner-time 
with  a  slight  sense  of  fatigue,  of  rattle,  of  discord  —  too  often 
of  disappointment  ?  In  January  I  go  home  soothed  and  fresh, 
as  if  I  had  been  listening  to  a  symphony  of  Mozart.  In  May 
I  struggle  into  Piccadilly  with  a  feeling  as  if  I  had  been  stunned 
by  a  new  piece  of  Brahms  which  I  could  not  half  follow,  or 
had  been  to  an  overcrowded  room  where  every  one  talked  in  a 
loud  voice  together,  and  I  had  missed  those  I  wished  to  hear. 
If  any  one  could  answer  these  questions,  he  would  throw 
some  light  on  the  mystery  of  modern  Art  —  its  aims,  its 
defects,  its  future. 

It  cannot  be  simply  that  in  the  winter  we  find  Old  Masters 
and  in  the  spring  we  have  the  Living,  who  are  not  all  Masters. 
This  year,  with  nearly  a  hundred  painters,  I  do  not  see  more 
than  five  or  six  real  Old  Masters.  No !  This  year  we  have 
the  English  school !  for,  except  Frank  Hals,  even  those  for- 

2B  369 


370  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

eign  born  almost  belong  to  us.  The  show  includes  scores  of 
good  men  of  our  own  generation  —  some,  indeed,  whom  we 
have  quite  lately  buried  and  mourned.  And  there  are  very 
few  pictures  more  than  150  years  old.  Yet,  withal,  there  is  an 
air  of  mellowness,  of  sobriety,  of  tone,  about  the  collection 
which  will  be  sadly  to  seek  in  May  next. 

Of  course,  the  painters  admitted  are  all  men  eminent  in 
their  time,  and  many  of  the  pictures  here  are  first-rate  exam- 
ples of  their  powers.  But,  allowing  for  all  that  in  their  favour, 
the  charm  of  the  gallery  lies  in  the  sense  of  its  recalling  the 
great  traditions  of  art,  in  a  tone  of  harmony  and  quiet  mas- 
tery, in  a  sense  of  the  ideal.  There  is  less  of  the  machine, 
of  advertising  sensationalism,  of  those  grotesque  novelties, 
which  will  set  our  teeth  on  edge  in  May.  As  I  am  no  expert, 
and  as  I  go  to  the  galleries  to  enjoy  myself,  not  to  detect 
spurious  names  in  the  catalogue,  I  am  not  going  to  criticise  this 
or  that  picture,  but  simply  note  down  a  few  thoughts.  No 
one  can  look  at  the  Reynoldses  and  the  Gainsboroughs  with- 
out feeling  how  powerful  and  how  inspiring  was  still  the  tra- 
dition of  Titian,  Rubens,  and  Vandyke  in  all  that  century. 
The  love  of  colour,  of  nature,  of  harmonious  tone,  was  their 
passion  —  not  the  mania  for  astonishing  us  with  something 
new  and  bizarre.  These  were  the  men  who  said  when  dying 
they  were  "going  to  Heaven,  and  Vandyke  was  of  the  com- 
pany !"  They  were  not  afraid  to  be  numbered  in  the  great 
family  of  ancient  masters.  Nor  can  one  see  Reynolds' 
"Venus  and  Piping  Boy,"  Gainsborough's  landscapes,  and 
Turner's  incredible  "Venus  and  Adonis,"  without  feeling 
that  at  least  down  to  the  Victorian  era  the  art  of  painting, 
like  dress  and  manners,  rested  on  a  basis  of  tradition  and 
"form."  No  doubt  both  Reynolds  and  Turner  had  better 
have  left  Venus  and  Cupids  alone.  It  was  not  their  line, 
and  they  could  do  much  better  things.  But  the  hold  over 


AT  BURLINGTON  HOUSE  371 

their  souls  of  Titian,  and  what  Mat  Arnold  would  call  the 
Grand  Style,  enabled  them  to  put  ideal  beauty  into  their  best 
work.  Nowadays,  of  course,  the  aim  is  to  be  commonplace, 
realistic,  photographic,  if  you  are  to  be  "convincing"  to  the 
man  in  the  street  and  the  woman  at  the  "Private  View." 
You  can't  play  it  too  low  down  in  the  democratic  Go-as- 
you-please.  I  think  I  prefer  even  an  echo  of  Titian  and 
Rubens. 

No  doubt  the  Old  Boys  had  the  great  advantage  of  noble 
sitters  for  their  portraits.  The  dress,  at  any  rate  of  men,  gave 
them  opportunities  denied  to  Watts  and  Millais.  Vandyke 
and  Lely,  Reynolds  and  Gainsborough,  printed  grands  sei- 
gneurs and  grandes  dames,  who  did  not  come  to  their  studios 
dressed  as  gamekeepers  or  as  actresses  in  a  Paris  fashion  plate. 
Hands,  it  is  said,  "went  out  with  ruffles,"  and  perhaps  the 
quiet  dignity  of  heads  went  out  with  Court  dress  and  hair 
powder.  When  Reynolds  and  Raeburn  painted  a  soldier  they 
made  us  look  at  his  eyes  and  mouth,  not  at  his  shiny  boots, 
epaulettes,  and  stars  and  garters.  Whether  gallant  generals 
can  have  grown  less  manly  to  look  at  than  they  were  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  whether  fine  ladies  now  veil  the  fire  of 
their  eyes  and  the  witchery  of  their  smiles  so  as  not  to  distract 
our  attention  from  the  creations  of  Worth  and  Paquin  which 
they  bid  us  admire,  I  will  not  pretend  to  decide.  But  some- 
how the  formal  clothes  of  old  Queen  Charlotte's  Court  seem 
to  give  a  noble  air  to  beautiful  women  better  than  the  iri- 
descent satins  and  the  multi-millionaire  jewellery  with  which 
our  professional  beauties  and  our  American  peeresses  amaze 
the  groundlings  as  they  stare  at  the  walls  of  Burlington  House 
in  the  flowery  month  of  May. 

I  called  Turner's  "Adonis"  incredible;  and  so  it  is.  Here 
is  a  large  picture,  five  feet  by  four,  with  an  adipose  Venus,  a 
boyish  Adonis,  Cupids,  dogs,  and  a  leafy  landscape,  in  flagrant 


372  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

imitation  of  Titian,  but  signed  by  "  J.  M.  W.  Turner."  As 
you  walk  across  the  room  from  a  distance  you  might  think 
it  a  Titian.  Ruskin  always  said  that  Turner  could  paint 
figures  if  he  wished.  And  though  this  is  certainly  not  a 
Titian,  I  think  the  nudities  are  as  good  as  Etty's,  and  as  a 
picture  I  much  prefer  it  to  the  "Homeric  Dance."  We  knew 
that  Turner  in  his  early  days  imitated  Claude,  Poussin,  Van- 
dervelde,  Cuyp,  and  some  others.  Here  he  is  trying  his  hand 
at  a  Titian.  And  so  did  Reynolds  in  his  "Venus  and  Boy," 
as  perhaps  did  Vandyke  in  his  "St.  Sebastian."  Alas!  that 
is  the  sad  thing  with  our  English  school.  They  are  always 
imitating  some  one.  And  even  when  the  so-called  Pre- 
Raphaelites,  whose  troubled  story  has  been  told  us  by  Mr. 
Holman  Hunt,  just  promoted  to  dear  old  Watts'  O.M.,  they 
started  with  ideas  about  "the  Primitives,"  whom  they  did  not 
half  understand,  and  certainly  did  not  really  follow. 

Half  the  delight  of  these  ancient  masters  lies  in  the  memo- 
ries they  stir  in  us.  One  versed  in  the  family  histories  of  the 
eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries  sees  on  every  side  in  this 
gallery  the  grandsires  and  grandmothers  of  countless  persons 
whom  he  may  meet  to-day.  How  quaint  are  the  two  lovely 
Stanhope  children,  whom  many  living  can  remember  as  old 
men.  What  a  crowd  of  reminiscences  rise  up  before  the  Rey- 
noldses,  Gainsboroughs,  Hogarths,  Romneys,  Raeburns, 
Hoppners !  Who  can  forget  the  cruel  tragedy  of  Gains- 
borough's bright  young  girl,  Martha  Ray?  How  strange  to 
be  reminded  of  a  man  who  was  officer  in  King  George's  army, 
a  clergyman,  a  rake,  and  a  murderer !  How  singular  to  see  a 
picture  by  one  who  was  a  beneficed  parson  and  also  a  Royal 
Academician!  How  many  men  have  been  "The  Reverend 

,  R.A."?    What  lessons  of  labour  and  learning  in  the 

eighty  drawings  by  Watts !  What  classical  refinement,  what 
scholarship,  what  grace,  in  Leighton's  "Cleoboulos  and  Cleo- 


AT  BURLINGTON  HOUSE  373 

bouline" —  "too  waxy  and  mawkish,"  you  say?  Ah! 
well!  but  how  lovely  in  line,  how  pure  in  ideal.  "Caviare 
to  the  general,"  perhaps.  Can  the  "general"  pronounce  the 
girl's  name  aright,  I  wonder?  But  a  grand  subject  for  a 
picture,  as  Leighton's  subjects  always  were.  And  then  to  see 
the  Rossetti  and  Burne- Jones  imaginings  all  in  a  line,  like 
lovely  phantoms  of  unearthly,  bloodless,  supernatural  beings, 
found  more  often  in  poetry  than  in  canvas.  Go  again  and 
again,  and  try  to  think  it  out ! 


TOBACCO 


WHEN  the  other  day  The  Young  Man  begged  me  to  say 
how  I  had  managed  to  retain  my  health  and  powers  of  work 
to  what  he  called  my  advanced  age,  my  reason  was  imprimis, 
by  avoiding  tobacco  in  all  its  forms.  I  was  quite  serious,  for 
I  am  a  determined  Misonicotinist  ;  one  of  the  few  men  of  the 
world  who  have  never  touched  the  filthy  weed  in  their  lives  ; 
one  who  looks  on  smoking  as  a  disease,  to  be  shunned  on 
grounds  moral,  social,  assthetic,  medical,  and  sexual.  The 
weed  was  first  introduced  into  Europe  at  the  Court  of  one  of 
the  most  infamous  women  in  an  age  of  poisoners.  In  an  old 
book  of  the  time  of  Charles  I.,  I  find  tobacco  described  as  "the 
spirits'  incubus,  that  begets  many  ugly  and  deformed  phan- 
tasies in  the  brain."  Nicotine  is  described  by  chemists  as 
"highly  poisonous,  forming  acrid  and  pungent  salts."  I 
would  not  have  it  supposed  that  my  aversion  to  tobacco  is 
solely  due,  or  even  mainly  due,  to  its  deleterious  effect  upon 
health.  A  sour  friend  of  mine  grumbles  that  it  does  not  kill 
its  votaries  fast  enough.  Nor  do  I  protest  against  excess  in 
smoking  merely.  I  protest  against  tobacco  altogether  as  a 
nasty  appetite,  hardly  worthy  of  a  gentleman. 

I  sometimes  tell  my  young  friends  that  smoking  is  the  only 
vice  that  inevitably  annoys  and  injures  the  innocent  neighbour. 
A  man  may  be  as  vicious,  as  coarse,  as  gluttonous,  as  drunken 
as  he  likes  to  be,  but  he  does  no  harm  to  others  who  do  not 
choose  to  share  his  orgies.  But  your  smoker  infects  every 

374 


TOBACCO  375 

one  near  him  with  the  reek  of  his  personal  indulgence,  and 
pollutes  every  place  he  enters  with  his  stale  fumes.  The 
habitual  smoker  habitually  stinks.  His  clothes,  his  hair,  his 
breath,  are  tainted ;  to  some  nostrils,  quite  sickening.  The 
newspaper,  the  book,  the  letter  he  has  touched,  have  the  malo- 
dorous taint.  Woollen  clothes,  curtains,  carpets,  retain  the 
stench  for  days ;  and  stale  tobacco  fume  is  disgusting  even  to 
your  habitual  smoker.  That  it  nauseates  women  and  chil- 
dren, and  not  a  few  men,  does  not  at  all  trouble  your  smoker. 
He  finds  it  a  source  of  pride  and  distinction.  It  is  the  only 
occasion  on  which  men,  otherwise  well  bred,  care  to  obtrude 
themselves  on  general  society  when  in  a  state  that  makes  them 
personally  offensive.  A  gentleman,  who  from  violent  exer- 
tion was  bathed  in  sweat,  would  not  calmly  seat  himself  in  a 
lady's  drawing-room  till  he  had  taken  a  bath  and  changed  his 
shirt ;  nor,  if  in  the  hunting  field  he  had  been  pitched  into  a 
fetid  ditch,  would  he  sit  down  in  his  filthy  state.  But  when 
the  men  "join  the  ladies"  after  a  dinner-party,  when  at  the 
theatre  the  bell  rings  up  the  third  act,  the  drawing-room  and 
the  stalls  reek  with  stale  fumes.  It  is  merely  an  insolent  con- 
vention to  pretend  that  people  who  do  not  smoke  themselves 
do  not  dislike  the  stale  fumes.  To  many  women,  and  to  some 
men,  they  are  the  most  repulsive  of  all  stinks. 

The  stock  excuse  for  this  license  to  be  offensive  to  others 
is  the  cowardly  reply  that  it  is  "commonly  done."  In  the 
eighteenth  century,  it  was  "common  enough"  to  be  drunk  in 
public.  In  the  seventeenth  century,  it  was  bon  ton  to  be 
debauched.  Tournaments,  bear-baiting,  cock-fighting,  prize- 
fights, masquerades,  street-brawls,  and  other  brutalities,  once 
common  and  affected  by  gentlemen,  have  been  condemned 
by  our  improved  sense  of  decency,  and  have  ceased  to  be  fash- 
ionable. "Fashion"  has  been  answerable  for  almost  every 
vice  and  for  many  abominations.  The  test  is  not  what  smart 


376  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

people  do,  but  what  is  due  to  others,  and  what  is  fitting  for  a 
gentleman.  The  question  to  be  asked  is,  by  what  title  do  you 
gratify  a  corporeal  appetite  in  a  way  that  makes  you  offen- 
sive to  people  you  come  near?  A  cross  old  man  in  a  non- 
smoking railway  carriage  was  rudely  addressed  by  some  young 
sparks,  as  they  lit  their  cigars :  "  You  don't  object  to  our  smok- 
ing, sir?"  "Oh  !"  said  he,  "you  won't  object  to  my  vomit- 
ing?" Spitting  in  public,  snuff,  and  sundry  brutalities  of  the 
kind,  are  slowly  dying  out  under  improved  standards  of  social 
decorum.  But  one  appetite,  it  seems,  has  leave  to  be  indulged 
in  mixed  society,  whatever  the  personal  nausea  produced  by  it 
in  others. 

The  stock  excuses  that  "everybody  does  it,"  that  it  is  a 
"settled  habit,"  are  not  true.  Mr.  Gladstone  never  smoked, 
and  no  one  ever  smoked  in  his  presence.  The  same  thing  is 
true,  I  believe,  of  the  late  Lord  Salisbury,  and  many  very 
eminent  men.  At  one  of  the  most  beautiful  castles  in  these 
islands  smoking  is  allowed  to  a  "house  party"  only  in  a  remote 
smoking-room.  In  my  young  days,  gentlemen  never  smoked 
tobacco  at  a  dinner-table,  in  a  theatre,  at  a  ball,  in  any  draw- 
ing-room, or,  indeed,  in  public  at  all.  Any  such  thing  would 
have  been  treated  as  an  outrage  which  ladies  would  resent. 
Nowadays,  the  dinner  is  hardly  swallowed  before  the  rooms 
are  heavy  with  smoke ;  the  party  is  broken  up ;  after  a  few 
minutes  of  formality  the  sexes  are  kept  separate.  At  a  house 
party  in  the  country,  at  the  theatre,  even  at  a  ball,  the  craving 
for  nicotine  poison  divides  the  men  from  the  women,  the 
moment  that  freedom  can  be  obtained  with  decency.  To- 
bacco has  destroyed  the  society  of  the  sexes,  more  than  ever 
alcohol  did  in  the  days  of  our  great-grandfathers.  It  has 
corrupted  and  undermined  even  life  in  the  family  as  well. 
Brothers  and  sisters,  cousins  and  relatives  of  both  sexes,  may 
dwell  under  the  same  roof.  They  meet  at  meals,  but  before 


TOBACCO  377 

the  repast  is  over,  the  sons  and  their  male  companions  are 
itching  to  be  off.  They  slink  into  their  own  quarters.  The 
sisters  and  girls  gossip,  knit,  play  waltzes  or  bridge,  talk  chif- 
fons or  small  scandal  —  and  pretend  that  they  like  it  so. 

I  am  not  going  to  say  anything  about  the  injury  to  health 
caused  by  tobacco.  More  men,  to  my  knowledge,  have  died 
of  nicotine  than  have  died  of  drink.  Over  and  over  again  I 
have  seen  young  fellows  troubled  with  heart  and  throat  ail- 
ments from  indulging  in  cigarettes.  I  knew  a  very  eminent 
man  who  could  not  eat  his  dinner  without  smoking  a  cigarette 
between  each  course,  and  who  fell  asleep  in  bed  with  a  lighted 
cigarette  between  his  teeth.  Naturally  he  died  of  it  young. 
One  of  the  most  famous  throat  specialists  told  me  that  quite 
half  the  cancerous  cases  he  treated  were  caused,  or  aggravated, 
by  tobacco.  He  was  himself  an  inveterate  smoker,  and  spoke 
with  a  big  Havannah  in  his  mouth.  He,  too,  died  soon  after- 
wards of  the  same  complaint. 

You  will  say  —  these  are  cases  of  excessive  smoking,  and 
prove  nothing  as  to  moderate  use  of  tobacco.  Quite  true: 
but  my  complaint  is  about  the  anti-social,  anti-feminine,  anti- 
human  habit  of  smoking.  It  disgusts  nearly  all  women,  and 
hurts  not  a  few  men.  When  I  have  been  forced  to  sit  in  a 
cloud  of  rancid  tobacco  for  hours,  I  have  had  a  headache  for 
twenty-four  hours,  and  my  clothes  offend  me  for  forty-eight 
hours  more.  If  men  crave  for  the  stimulus,  let  them  take 
care  to  have  it  in  private,  and  so  as  not  to  infect  others.  If 
fellows  must  smoke,  let  them  retire  into  a  remote  smoking- 
den ;  wash,  be  shampooed,  and  change  all  their  clothes  before 
they  dare  to  mix  in  general  society. 

Of  course,  the  smoking  tribe  will  call  me  a  milksop,  an  old 
"crank,"  with  abnormal  olfactories,  and  so  forth.  Well! 
I  remember  when  I  was  a  bowler  to  our  eleven  of  "Non- 
smokers,"  we  won  in  an  innings;  and  no  wonder.  That  is 


378  MEMORIES  AND    THOUGHTS 

fifty-five  years  ago,  but  I  can  bowl  a  good  ball  still.  I  have 
been  a  member  of  the  Alpine  Club  and  two  famous  smoking 
clubs :  and  I  founded  one  of  them  —  not  to  smoke,  but  to 
talk.  I  have  been  about  in  London  society  and  in  London 
clubs  any  time  these  fifty  years.  So  far  from  being  abnormal 
in  my  sense  of  smell,  I  will  not  deny  that  the  scent  of  a  very  fine 
Havannah  in  the  open  air  on  a  frosty  night,  smoked  by  a 
pleasant  friend  a  few  yards  off  me,  is  not  so  offensive.  It  is 
the  nasty  cigarette,  the  stinking  pipe,  the  rotten  garbage  of 
cheap  stuff,  the  stale,  clammy  reek  where  smoke  has  been 
every  night,  which  is  intolerable.  If  I  ani  a  "crank,"  I  can 
only  say  that  fifty  years  ago,  gentlemen,  as  a  rule,  must  have 
been  "cranks,"  for  they  used  to  regard  a  man  who  habitually 
smoked  everywhere  and  anywhere,  in  mixed  society,  and  in 
association  with  ladies,  as  a  dirty  brute.  As  to  women  smok- 
ing, I  cannot  bring  myself  to  speak.  I  cannot  get  over  the 
feeling  that  they  do  not  as  they  should  do.  I  will  just  end 
with  the  words  of  two  illustrious  men.  William  Morris  wrote : 
"Tobacco  seems  to  me  a  more  dangerous  intoxicant  than 
liquors."  John  Ruskin  scorns  the  men  "who  would  put  the 
filth  of  tobacco  into  the  first  breeze  of  a  May  morning."  Yes ! 
and  into  the  golden  curls  of  a  child. 


CARD-PLAYING 

1905 

THOUGH  I  detest  the  sight  of  cards,  I  am  well  aware  that 
the  habit  of  card-playing  does  not  offend  and  injure  the  inno- 
cent bystander  as  the  habit  of  smoking  tobacco  does.  I  do  not 
call  it  a  vice,  unless  it  ends  in  reckless  gambling,  which  it  often 
does.  But  it  is  an  anti-social,  debilitating  form  of  folly, 
which  encourages  mean  kinds  of  excitement.  "Jeune 
homme,"  said  that  decrepit  scoundrel,  Talleyrand,  to  a  young 
man  who  declined  to  play  with  him,  "quelle  triste  vieillesse 
vous  vous  preparez !"  The  old  age  of  Talleyrand  and  of  all 
such  hoary  sinners  could  not  be  anything  but  triste.  Cards 
may  have  enabled  him  to  forget  his  evil  ways,  but  opium 
would  have  done  better.  "Life  would  be  tolerable,"  said  a 
great  and  good  man,  "if  it  were  not  for  its  amusements." 
He  was  no  doubt  thinking  mainly  of  cards,  which  bored  him. 
Cards  bore  me,  the  sight  of  them,  the  sight  of  men  and  women 
playing  cards  bores  me.  The  long  gasping  silences  bore  me. 
The  clatter  when  they  count  the  points,  the  quarrels,  the 
snarls,  the  sneers,  the  chuckles,  the  "Why  did  you  lead  that 
spade?"  —  "I  knew  you  had  the  ace !"  Can  any  jabber  be 
more  wearisome,  more  inane  ?  Men  and  women,  who  are  too 
dull  to  take  pleasure  in  talk,  too  ignorant  to  read,  too  lazy  to 
dance,  deaf  to  music,  blind  to  art,  unable  to  keep  awake,  be- 
take them  to  cards,  as  peasants  in  Italy  make  night  hideous 
with  incessant  mora. 

The  noodles  who  brag  that  smoking  is  manly,  like  shop- 

379 


380  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

boys  over  their  first  penny  smoke,  tell  us  that  cards  are  so- 
ciable and  promote  friendly  intercourse.  It  is  just  the  con- 
trary. Cards  strangle  society,  and  are  the  death  of  any  grace- 
ful amusement,  be  it  talk,  music,  play-acting,  dancing,  or 
charades.  They  will  say  I  am  an  old  curmudgeon,  and  so  on. 
Not  at  all!  I  am  a  particularly  sociable  fellow,  who  can 
always  make  myself  at  home  in  any  company,  be  it  a  London 
crush,  or  a  Pall  Mall  club,  a  big  country  house,  or  a  village 
inn,  a  garden  party,  or  a  farmer's  "ordinary."  Homo  sum, 
etc.,  etc.  At  college  I  played  whist,  "Boston,"  as  we  named 
bridge,  and  Van  John,  like  anybody  else,  though  I  always 
found  it  poor  fun.  My  father  and  his  brothers  and  sisters 
were  first-rate  whist-players.  I  knew  an  old  couple  who  sat 
half  the  night  playing  "double-dummy"  together,  and  quar- 
relling over  it  like  butcher's  dogs.  They  were  both  very  clever, 
very  rich,  with  society  at  their  call.  But  they  were  so  soaked 
in  cards  that  they  could  not  read  —  even  a  newspaper ;  they 
had  nothing  to  say  to  one  another  or  to  any  one  else;  they 
had  no  interest  in  anything  on  earth,  except  the  "odd  trick" 
and  "my  last  trump."  When  they  shall  hear  the  Last  Trump, 
what  sort  of  figure  will  they  cut?  The  old  Puritans  and 
Quakers  firmly  believed  that  Satan  had  invented  cards.  I 
firmly  believe  there  are  people,  who  if  they  were  offered  their 
choice  of  going  to  heaven  to  sing  hymns,  or  going  to  hell  where 
cards  are  allowed,  would  follow  the  game,  even  if  they  had  to 
play  dummy  with  little  devils. 

Of  course,  my  tirade  against  cards  is  called  out  by  the 
modern  mania  for  Bridge.  A  family  game  of  whist  or 
Vingt-et-  Un  is  silly,  but  I  cannot  call  it  vice,  hardly  a  nuisance, 
if  it  is  not  incessant  and  too  irritating.  But  "Bridge"  has 
become  a  public  nuisance.  It  is  poisoning  society,  desolating 
homes,  and  corrupting  women.  Drawing-rooms,  where  a 
graceful  woman  gave  you  five  o'clock  tea,  have  become  gloomy 


CARD-PLAYING  381 

gambling  hells.  House  parties  have  become  intolerable  to 
those  who  are  not  bitten  with  the  fashionable  tarantula. 
Women  of  cultivation,  who  have  lived  in  the  best  society, 
will  not  accept  invitations  to  dinner  until  they  know  they  are 
not  to  be  asked  to  sit  down  to  Bridge.  Many  a  man  and 
woman  leaves  a  country  house  with  the  sense  that  they  have 
been  bored  and  plundered.  Horrid  tales  reach  us  of  the 
straits  to  which  girls  have  been  put  when  some  old  harridan 
has  got  them  to  sit  down  to  a  game.  What  happened  to 
Elizabeth  at  the  country  places  she  visited  is  by  no  means 
fiction,  but  revolting  fact.  I  have  heard  a  real  grande  dame 
of  the  old  school  say  to  a  mother  —  "My  dear,  let  me  warn 
you,  never  you  let  your  daughter  go  to  a  smart  country  house." 
"  Bridge  "  has  become  a  vice  as  rampant  as  ever  was  loo  in  the 
days  of  Lord  Hervey  and  Bubb  Doddington. 

A  great  many  men  and  women  hate  Bridge,  as  many  do  not 
like  tobacco.  They  are  dragged  into  both,  against  their  tastes, 
because  it  is  "the  thing,"  what  "they  all  do  now."  Some 
women  pretend  to  like  a  cigarette,  because  they  fondly  trust 
it  will  recommend  them  to  men.  In  the  old  days  such  women 
affected  a  love  of  drink,  as  in  our  days  they  haunt  the  paddock 
and  the  betting  ring.  They  little  know  what  their  male  com- 
panions think  of  them.  Both  tobacco  and  cards  are  new 
habits,  the  "fashion  of  the  day"  —  quite  recent,  a  craze  grown 
up  in  living  memory.  I  can  remember  the  day  when  smoking 
was  the  exception  —  not  the  rule,  and  never  indulged  in  pub- 
lic, and  in  the  society  of  ladies.  I  have  said  all  this,  because  it 
seems  to  me  a  typical  instance  of  the  curse  of  our  age  —  con- 
ventional habits.  The  modern  craze  to  do  "what  fellows  do," 
to  wear  the  latest  pattern  of  shirt  collar,  to  vote  the  ticket  of 
the  "best  people" — which  means  the  richest  or  the  most 
showy  people  —  "to  do  the  right  thing,"  —all  this  has  be- 
come the  sole  religion  of  the  shallow,  commonplace  man  "in 


382  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

our  street,"  or  "in  the  next  villa,"  the  whole  duty  of  man  to  the 
average  man  and  woman  of  the  comfortable  class.  When 
men  and  women  will  have  the  spirit  to  live  their  own  lives, 
and  not  to  copy  the  lives,  or  rather  the  ways,  of  their  neigh- 
bours, they  will  not  think  it  manly  to  pester  their  neighbours 
with  the  foul  odours  of  their  own  appetites,  or  to  ruin  society 
by  forcing  their  friends  to  take  a  hand  in  their  own  sordid 
games. 


GAME    PRESERVING   AND  BATTUES 

1905 

I  AM  all  for  active  exercise  in  the  air,  in  the  open  country 
as  far  as  possible,  the  wilder  the  better.  I  have  been  a  rider 
nearly  all  my  life,  and  was  once  caught  in  the  hunting  field  by 
Anthony  Trollope,  who  seemed  to  think  it  very  funny  to  meet 
me  there.  I  have  been  a  mountaineer  and  have  done  the 
principal  peaks  and  passes  of  the  Alps.  I  know  the  Pyrenees, 
the  Apennines,  and  the  mountains  of  Tyrol  and  of  Greece. 
I  have  often  climbed  Ben  Nevis,  Ben  Lomond,  Helvellyn, 
Snowdon,  and  have  tramped  any  time  these  sixty  years  over 
the  finest  moors  in  England,  Wales,  and  Scotland ;  nor  did  I 
ever  feel  a  more  glorious  sense  of  life  than  when  this  last 
autumn  I  was  taking  my  solitary  rambles  over  the  deer  for- 
ests of  Ross-shire  and  Skye.  And  withal,  knowing  more 
of  mountains,  moors,  and  forests  han  most  professed  sports- 
men, I  make  bold  to  say  that  "game-preserving,"  as  now 
practised  in  England,  is  a  social  nuisance  and  a  public  curse, 
and  that  "battue-shooting,"  as  now  developed,  is  a  stupid, 
idle,  snobbish  form  of  sport.  The  man  who  delivers  himself 
over  to  shooting  as  the  end  of  life  becomes  a  tiresome  boor, 
intellectually  below  the  head  gamekeeper,  a  lump  of  brutal 
selfishness  and  vulgar  swagger.  He  knows  nothing  really 
of  Nature :  the  glories  of  the  country  are  lost  to  him :  he  is 
blind  to  them ;  he  is  unworthy  of  enjoying  them,  even  if  he 
had  senses  to  perceive  them. 

383 


384  MEMORIES  AND  THOUGHTS 

Now,  I  am  neither  vegetarian  nor  humanitarian.  I  can  en- 
joy the  leg  of  a  pheasant  or  half  a  grouse.  I  am  sometimes 
called  a  Jacobin,  which  is  a  shame ;  for  I  am  a  stout  Conserva- 
tive in  many  things.  I  see  that  life  is  being  taken  all  round  us, 
and  indeed  has  to  be  taken  in  self-defence.  I  see  a  painful 
necessity  for  a  lethal  chamber  for  the  superfluous  or  unneces- 
sary quadruped,  and  I  sometimes  feel  sorry  there  is  no  lethal 
chamber  for  the  unnecessary  biped.  I  am  no  mawkish  sen- 
timentalist. If  my  horse  had  broken  his  leg  and  there  was  no 
one  to  save  him  or  to  kill  him,  I  could  put  the  pistol  to  his  brain 
myself.  Or  I  could  cut  a  lamb's  throat,  if  meat  must  be  had 
and  no  butcher  could  be  got.  A  man  has  to  do  such  things, 
just  as  in  battle  he  has  to  use  his  weapon.  But  as  to  amusing 
myself  by  wantonly  killing  an  exquisite  bird  such  as  a  pheas- 
ant, or  a  noble  beast  such  as  an  antlered  stag  —  I  should  prefer 
to  lose  my  own  little  finger.  It  won't  do  to  tell  me  I  don't 
know  what  "sport"  is.  I  have  been  out  on  the  glaciers 
with  chamois-hunters  and  have  seen  more  chamois  on  rock 
and  snow  than  half  the  sportsmen  of  Norfolk.  I  have  been 
with  the  hunt  of  wild  deer  in  Fontainebleau  Forest.  I  have 
lived  for  many  years  in  Surrey,  Sussex,  and  Kent  surrounded 
by  big  preserves :  —  the  pheasants  troop  across  my  lawn 
here  all  day  long  (I  prefer  them  to  peacocks)  and  all  my  life  my 
holidays  have  been  passed  in  the  moors,  woods,  and  hills. 
And  I  say  your  modern  battue  is  a  vulgar  and  ignoble  butchery 
—  and  as  for  a  "big  drive"  being  the  type  of  country  enjoy- 
ment, I  say  it  is  the  ruin  of  the  country,  and  the  occupation  of 
those  who  know  nothing  of  the  country. 

No  one  ever  hears  a  confirmed  battue-man  show  the  smallest 
interest  in  the  country  as  Nature.  He  is  blind  to  its  loveliness ; 
deaf  to  the  endless  chirp,  call,  and  notes  of  the  songsters,  the 
"moan  of  doves  in  immemorial  elms,"  the  sough  of  the  pine 
wood ;  he  has  no  scent  for  the  fragrance  of  earth,  and  bank, 


GAME   PRESERVING   AND   BATTUES  385 

and  heath.  He  drowns  the  wild  thyme  with  tobacco  smoke 
—  the  only  songster  he  cares  for  is  the  croak  and  screech  of  the 
pheasant.  All  he  wants  are  plenty  of  stolen  eggs  and  a  crack 
place  in  the  firing  line.  For  this  he  pays  in  bank-notes,  and 
swaggers  about  it  at  his  club  for  a  week.  When  you  meet  him 
at  a  country  house  or  even  at  a  town  dinner-party,  he  can  talk 
of  nothing  but  his  last  "bag"  —  "Sir  George  can  show  you 
better  sport  than  Lord  S."  —  and  when  he  dies,  the  only  truth- 
ful epitaph  that  could  be  graven  on  his  tomb  is  that  of  Graf 
von  Zahdarm's  in  Sartor  Resartus,  "quinquies  mille  perdrices 
plumbo  confecit."  An  evening  spent  with  Sir  George's 
gamekeeper  would  be  more  amusing  and  far  more  instructive. 
He  does  know  something  about  the  secrets  of  nature  and  the 
ways  of  animals.  He  rears  hundreds  for  every  one  he  kills, 
and  whatever  he  kills  is  in  the  way  of  trade  and  not  for  amuse- 
ment. To  a  man  who  really  loves  Nature,  sucks  in  its  infinite 
forms  at  every  pore  of  his  body,  and  watches  it  hour  by  hour 
and  night  and  day,  what  is  called  "sport"  is  a  vulgar  disturb- 
ance, as  if  fellows  handed  round  bottled  stout  whilst  we  were 
trying  to  listen  to  a  symphony  of  Beethoven.  Few  sportsmen 
have  seen  as  many  moors  as  I  have,  for  I  have  been  on  the 
tramp  for  sixty  years.  But  nothing  would  induce  me  to  carry 
a  gun,  or  anything  but  a  good  stick,  possibly  a  map  and  a  field- 
glass;  nor  would  I  lie  half  the  morning  concealed  behind  a 
peat  bank  as  if  I  were  a  gypsy  tinker. 

There  is  no  room  in  this  little  crowded  island  for  extensive 
"preserves,"  which  are  the  ruin  of  agriculture  and  the  source 
of  endless  social  mischiefs.  Woods  swarming  with  birds 
close  to  a  great  town  breed  poachers.  The  country  lad  who 
takes  to  poaching,  would  not  dream  of  stealing  ducks  off  a 
pond,  or  hens  from  a  farmyard.  He  is  the  fine  "  young  blood  " 
of  the  place,  who  has  a  taste  for  a  gentlemanly  amusement. 
The  rotten  system  of  county  magistracies  rests  much  on  the 


386  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

game  interest.  Farming  law,  and  the  practice  of  leasing  land, 
is  built  up  on  game  questions.  English  rural  society  with  all 
its  old  feudal  restrictions  and  divisions  has  been  evolved 
out  of  the  innocent  bird.  He  has  avenged  the  massacre  of  his 
race  by  ruining  British  agriculture.  Partridge  shooting  over 
dogs  in  the  old  way  was  a  simple  thing,  and  when  the  popula- 
tion of  our  island  was  one-fourth  what  it  is  to-day  harmless 
enough,  however  vapid.  But  nowadays,  with  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  rich  men  ready  to  spend  any  money  to  be  "in 
the  fashion,"  it  is  found  more  profitable  in  many  counties  to 
leave  large  tracts  of  lands  more  or  less  in  a  state  of  nature  than 
to  cultivate  them  in  a  regular  way.  Forestry  is  an  unknown 
art.  The  woods  are  best  left  in  their  native  tangle.  Pheas- 
ants grow  constantly  in  price,  and  timber  falls.  High-class 
farmers  with  capital  will  not  take  your  game  conditions.  So 
farms  go  to  the  thriftless  and  more  squeezable  tenants ;  and 
if  these  are  defaulters  and  have  to  quit,  the  birds  stay  on,  all 
the  more,  if  the  land  lies  waste. 

The  idea  that  landlords  shoot  on  their  own  lands  is  an 
old-world  convention.  The  great  proportion  of  "preserves" 
are  let  to  outsiders,  like  furnished  houses  in  Brighton  or  Bel- 
gravia  during  the  season.  The  outsiders  are  men  with  money, 
usually  from  a  big  trading  centre.  The  demand  for  "shoot- 
ings" grows  like  that  for  motor-cars,  as  the  luxury  of  the  rich 
and  a  passport  to  "society."  The  Kaffir  millionaire,  the 
Colonial  boss,  who  wants  to  offer  to  royalty  a  bag  of  5000  per 
week,  will  give  sums  that  run  into  six  figures  for  a  first-class 
shooting  property.  From  him  downwards,  to  the  syndicates 
of  sporting  butchers  and  smart  bill-brokers,  there  is  an  un- 
limited market  for  sporting  rents.  Distressed  owners  have 
discovered  —  not  gold  mines  on  their  estates  —  but  game, 
which,  one  way  with  another,  will  bring  in  better  returns  than 
low-class  farms.  So  that  in  large  tracts  of  English  land,  and 


GAME   PRESERVING   AND   BATTUES  387 

still  more  in  Scotch  land,  agriculture  goes  out  of  fashion  and 
game  takes  its  place.  In  the  home  counties,  one  may  see 
miles  of  land  quickly  sinking  into  prairie  condition,  where  the 
profits  of  wild  things  exceed  those  of  laborious  cultivation. 
The  woods  drop  into  swampy  thickets ;  forestry  costs  money 
and  disturbs  the  game:  hedge- rows  and  fences  are  left  to 
decay  in  gaps  and  fragments;  gates,  barns,  and  byres  are 
suffered  to  rot.  The  syndicate  of  tradesmen  from  town  pays 
regularly,  and  does  not  ask  for  new  drainage  works,  repairs, 
and  reductions,  as  troublesome  farmers  are  fond  of  doing. 

I  have  seen  an  estate  where  two  or  three  small  houses  with 
suitable  gardens  are  let  to  respectable  tenants  —  retired  sol- 
diers and  professional  men,  who  keep  their  own  places  trimly 
cared  for.  But  thousands  of  acres  round  them  have  been 
allowed  to  go  waste  for  years,  being  leased  for  "sport"  to  a 
syndicate  from  the  City.  The  woods  are  pathless  jungles 
overgrown  with  brushwood  and  worthless.  The  pastures 
are  masses  of  thistles,  brambles,  gorse  and  dock-weed, 
wherein  thickets  of  young  saplings  have  sown  themselves  and 
are  forming  little  copses  of  their  own.  Ant-heaps  weighing 
many  cwts.  stud  the  soil  and  afford  ample  food  for  the  birds. 
Miles  of  fencing,  hedge-rows,  .and  hurdling  are  going  to 
wrack  and  ruin,  and  no  longer  would  enclose  a  cow  or  a 
sheep,  even  if  the  pasture  allowed  them  to  feed.  The  casuals 
who  are  called  the  beaters  break  in  wherever  it  suits  them : 
so  big  gaps  and  broken  gates  invite  the  tramp  or  the  gypsy 
to  come  along  night  and  day  for  anything  he  can  pick  up. 
The  unlucky  tenants  who  have  taken  farms  and  residences  on 
the  property  find  their  holding  covered  with  thistle-down, 
overrun  with  rabbits,  birds,  vermin  of  every  kind  with  which 
the  lands  round  them  swarm.  No  care  can  keep  their  gar- 
dens and  meadows  in  good  order  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
such  a  plague.  No  wonder  the  "landed  interest  is  distressed." 


388  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

We  need  not  fear  that  the  means  of  healthy  exercise  are 
cut  off,  if  this  small  island  ever  ceases  to  be  a  collection  of 
shooting-boxes.  The  world  is  still  wide  enough  for  big  game 
for  those  who  crave  for  it.  There  is  good  sport  and  dangerous 
too  —  in  the  Rockies  —  and  Africa  is  a  big  continent  and  far 
from  exhausted.  Let  us  encourage  these  gentry  who  cannot 
live  without  killing  to  take  a  turn  at  tigers.  I  don't  mean  hi  a 
howdah  on  an  elephant  —  which  is  not  a  very  noble  sport  — 
but  real  tiger-hunting  on  foot,  or  killing  leopard  from  a  tree. 
That  they  tell  me  is  exciting  and  far  from  easy.  But  there  is 
a  form  of  sport  which  might  really  be  practised  with  great 
benefit  to  the  community,  and  would  call  out  great  qualities 
in  the  hunter.  India  and  many  other  parts  of  the  East,  as 
of  South  America,  suffer  continually  from  venomous  snakes 
and  other  reptiles.  A  man  who  could  bring  home  1000  skins 
of  rattle-snakes  would  really  have  something  to  boast  of. 
Good  sport  may  still  be  had  with  the  larger  saurians  —  though 
it  is  a  beggarly  game  to  lie  on  a  bank  and  shoot  a  crocodile 
asleep  with  an  explosive  bullet.  All  that  need  be  said  is  this. 
There  are  still  upon  this  planet  masses  of  powerful  and  very 
noxious  creatures  —  whose  numbers  it  would  be  a  service  to 
mankind  to  reduce.  And  the  reducing  them,  without  taking 
the  unfair  advantage  of  modern  fire-arms,  would  be  a  real 
test  of  skill  and  pluck. 

The  world  is  wide  enough  for  fifty  forms  of  active  exertion, 
with  or  without  special  risks,  if  that  is  all  that  is  wanted. 
Even  our  island  has  room  for  plenty  of  healthy  sport,  which 
can  be  indulged  in  without  ruining  the  country  and  without 
outrageous  expense.  The  fashionable  craze  for  drives  and 
battues  is  vulgar  swagger  to  air  one's  purse  and  one's  fine 
friends.  There  is  neither  active  exercise  nor  enjoyment  of 
nature  in  waiting  on  a  seat  about  a  damp  cover  for  hours  till 
the  beaters  have  done  their  task.  The  "true  sportsman"  is 


GAME  PRESERVING    AND    BATTUES  389 

the  last  man  in  the  world  to  notice  the  loveliness  of  the  land  or 
to  care  for  it  if  he  did.  If  he  says  "he  cares  for  a  day's  shoot- 
ing because  it  takes  him  on  to  the  moors,"  he  might  as  well 
say  he  loves  going  to  Church  because  it  lets  him  see  some  new 
pretty  faces !  When  I  tramp  over  a  Westmorland  moor,  or  a 
Ross-shire  deer-forest,  I  go  alone  with  a  stout  stick  and  a  field- 
glass  ;  my  course  is  directed  by  the  heights  whence  I  get  the 
most  glorious  views ;  what  I  hunt  is  a  mountain  burn  to  its  rock 
fall  or  its  head  spring ;  I  can  watch  the  grouse,  or  the  -peewit, 
or  the  heron,  hour  after  hour  without  any  wish  to  kill :  the 
black-nosed  ram,  the  Highland  cattle,  or  the  antlered  stag, 
are  alike  a  sight  of  joy  and  freshness.  I  would  as  soon  kill 
any  one  of  the  three.  Or  if  I  had  to  spare  one,  it  should  be 
the  buck. 


"THE   GLORIOUS   TWELFTH" 

AUGUST  1890 

I  AM  amused  (as  I  often  am  at  this  season)  by  the  ebullitions 
of  the  enthusiastic  sportsman  over  the  return  of  "The  Glorious 
Twelfth"  —  the  Feast  of  Saint  Grouse  —  who  has  superseded 
all  the  saints  in  the  British  calendar.  Hear  the  other  side  of 
the  matter  from  one  who  loves  the  moors  much  too  well  to 
carry  a  gun  when  he  walks  over  them.  I  have  known  the 
moors  and  the  mountains  for  more  than  fifty  years;  and  I 
think  few  people  have  ever  drawn  from  them  more  health, 
happiness,  and  abiding  memories  of  beauty  and  peace.  Ever 
since  I  was  a  boy  I  have  loved  the  heather  and  the  wild  fowl, 
and  the  deer,  and  all  feathered  and  furred  things.  Scores 
and  scores  of  times  I  have  spent  days  in  watching  the  antlered 
bucks,  and  have  traced  the  chamois  in  the  Alps  as  they  troop 
down  to  drink ;  I  have  heard  the  grouse  swirl  up  from  almost 
every  moor  in  Scotland,  from  the  Cheviots  to  Skye  and  from 
Arran  to  Dunrobin.  I  have  seen,  perhaps,  as  much  of  the 
hills  as  most  sportsmen;  but  I  never  thought  it  would  add 
to  my  enjoyment  of  them  to  kill  anything.  To  us  who  really 
love  the  moors  for  their  loveliness  and  pathetic  rest,  and  their 
solitary  simplicity,  all  this  noisy  swagger  about  killing  birds 
is  mere  cant.  As  "the  Twelfth"  comes  round  we  know  that 
our  peaceful  and  lovely  hills  are  being  stormed  by  a  crowd  of 
people  who  care  nothing  for  Nature,  and  whose  talk  is  of  bags, 
and  gillies,  and  luncheons.  The  effect  is  as  if,  when  we  are 

390 


"THE  GLORIOUS  TWELFTH"  391 

taking  a  quiet  walk  in  some  beloved  nook  in  a  well-known 
forest,  we  stumble  suddenly  on  a  holiday  party  making  picnic, 
and  our  choice  haunt  is  become  like  a  corner  of  "the  hill" 
on  a  Derby  Day.  Some  years  ago  I  took  my  wife  and  boys 
to  visit  a  beautiful  historic  ruin  which  poetry,  art,  and  a  long 
chain  of  glorious  reminiscences  have  made  a  place  of  pil- 
grimage to  all  who  speak  the  English  language.  As  ill-luck 
would  have  it,  that  very  day  and  spot  had  been  chosen  for 
their  annual  picnic  by  2000  "trippers"  on  pleasure  bent. 
They  seemed  to  be  enjoying  themselves ;  and,  as  far  as  nigger 
minstrelsy,  steam  roundabouts,  and  donkey-races  could  give 
enjoyment,  I  trust  they  had  it.  But  we  had  little.  For  a 
short  space  we  tried  to  admire  the  magnificent  ashlar  masonry 
of  the  Donjon,  the  exquisite  tracery  of  the  chapel  windows, 
and  to  recall  the  passages  of  our  great  writers  which  lingered 
in  our  memory.  But  it  was  not  to  be.  And  I  recommend 
all  who  visit  those  venerable  ruins  of  the  piety  of  our  fore- 
fathers to  avoid  anniversaries  dedicated  to  the  outing  of  the 
tripper. 

I  will  not  enter  on  the  big  question  of  game  and  "sport," 
in  other  words,  the  slaughtering  of  harmless  animals  for 
amusement.  So  long  as  I  am  not  expected  to  join  I  shall 
not  interfere  with  the  amusements  of  others.  Personally,  if 
I  were  compelled  to  kill  something,  I  would  rather  shoot  a 
broken-down  cab-horse  than  a  buck  or  a  pheasant.  I  should 
at  least  feel  that  I  had  put  a  poor  thing  out  of  its  misery,  and 
that  I  had  not  wantonly  destroyed  a  beautiful  creature.  But 
on  that  wide  topic  I  will  not  enlarge.  If  persons  assure  us 
that  they  are  never  really  happy  unless  when  they  are  killing 
something,  we  must  take  their  word  for  it.  What  I  complain 
of  is,  that  they  should  pretend  their  killing  to  be  mere  love  of 
Nature,  or  that "  sport "  adds  a  fresh  charm  to  the  glory  of  the 
hills.  On  the  contrary,  many  of  us  look  on  it  as  a  stupid, 


MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

noisy,  vulgar  desecration  of  hill  and  moor,  of  loch  and  fell. 
Those  who  really  enjoy  them  love  them  for  themselves,  and 
not  for  the  "bag"  and  the  "drive"  and  the  champagne  lunch- 
eons and  the  company  of  gillies  in  kilt  and  tartan.  All  that 
apparatus  of  the  deer-forest  and  the  paraphernalia  of  sport 
can  be  hired  by  any  cockney  with  money  in  Pall  Mall  and 
Bond  Street ;  these  things  are  no  more  a  proof  of  taste  or  of 
spirit  than  are  powdered  footmen  or  a  coach  and  fine  team. 
People  who  find  all  these  costly  appendages  necessary  to 
enable  them  to  enjoy  a  walk  over  a  moor,  do  not  really  enjoy 
the  moor  either  with  them  or  without  them.  They  might 
just  as  well  tell  us  that  they  only  enjoy  pictures  when  they  are 
waltzing  or  dancing  a  cotillon  in  the  gallery,  or  that  to  enjoy 
music  you  must  be  free  to  promenade  in  the  concert-room 
and  chat  with  your  friends. 

The  last  time  I  went  down  to  Perthshire  I  took  care  to  go  in 
June.  What  will  you  do  when  you  get  there?  my  friends 
said ;  there  is  nothing  to  kill.  No,  I  told  them,  that  is  why 
I  am  going  now;  I  am  going  to  see  the  moors.  And  they 
thought  that  sheer  midsummer  madness.  Would  that  sports- 
men could  have  seen  the  late  snow  on  the  caps  of  Ben  More 
and  Schehallion,  as  they  rose  in  the  distance  over  the  moors 
of  Breadalbane,  and  heard  the  call  of  the  curlews,  and  watched 
the  white  gulls  fishing  in  the  reaches  of  the  Tay,  or  seen  the 
blaze  of  gold  from  gorse  and  broom  on  Murthly  moor,  or 
listened  to  the  roar  of  the  Tummel  and  the  Bran  in  spate. 
The  Highlands  in  June  are  full  of  glory  and  of  peace.  The 
glens  are  resplendent  with  blossom  and  leaf;  the  burns  are 
bursting  with  their  springtide  floods ;  the  moors  are  one  broad 
home  of  calm  and  abounding  life.  And  it  is  all  one's  own; 
it  is  all  Nature's,  and  theirs  who  love  Nature,  beauty,  and 
natural  life.  Those  sportsmen  who  pant  for  the  freedom  of 
the  hillside  are  talking  scandal  in  Hyde  Park  or  sweltering  in 


"THE   GLORIOUS  TWELFTH"  393 

stuffy  ball-rooms.  Bond  Street  tradesmen  are  puffing  their 
patent  guns,  boots,  luncheon  luxuries,  and  wonderful  inven- 
tions to  enable  ladies  and  gentlemen  to  turn  Sutherlandshire 
into  Mayf air.  The  year  draws  on ;  half  the  summer  is  gone ; 
the  Minister,  for  the  seventeenth  time,  really  does  hope  that 
the  House  will  rise  next  week.  The  sacred  day  arrives,  and 
all  peace  and  beauty  are  gone.  Gangs  of  smart  people  pour 
over  the  country  of  Rob  Roy,  with  Hyde  Park  barouches 
and  Belgravian  footmen.  Lord's,  Hurlingham,  Henley,  and 
Ascot  are  played  over  again  amid  the  heather  and  the  tarns. 
A  compound  essence  of  Monte  Carlo,  Wiesbaden,  and  Royat 
is  dished  up  on  the  desolate  solitudes  of  the  Grampians.  It's 
all  "awfully  jolly,"  very  smart  indeed,  and  everything  is  really 
the  last  thing  out.  The  Glorious  Twelfth  has  come  back. 
We  who  love  the  mountains  for  themselves,  and  the  grouse, 
the  deer,  and  the  salmon,  as  the  natural  inmates  of  the  moun- 
tains and  the  lochs,  look  with  mixed  feelings  on  all  this  hulla- 
baloo about  killing  animals  as  Society's  Bank  Holiday  trip. 
One  is  pleased  that  any  fellow-mortal  should  be  pleased; 
and  we  are  not  disturbed  if  they  who  live  to  kill  regard  all  who 
enjoy  the  moor  without  killing  as  milksops.  But  to  any 
mountaineer  accustomed  to  the  peaks  and  passes  of  the  Ober- 
land  or  the  Bernina,  these  feats  of  the  grouse-killer  do  not 
seem  quite  so  heroic.  To  a  traveller  who  has  sought  for 
beauty,  and  drunk  in  health  on  a  thousand  hillsides  through- 
out Europe,  it  seems  a  bit  of  cockney  swagger  to  turn  the 
Highlands  into  one  big  Hurlingham  —  where  the  killing  of 
birds  is  the  excuse  for  gowns,  luncheon  baskets,  and  pony 
phaetons.  When  a  short  Act  is  passed  making  it  penal  to  kill 
a  vertebrate  animal  except  in  the  way  of  trade,  it  will  be  possi- 
ble to  enjoy  the  hills,  the  moors,  forests,  and  copses  of  this 
beautiful  island  all  the  year  round.  Till  that  day  arrives,  let 
those  who  love  the  Highlands  go  there  before  the  "Glorious 
Twelfth  of  August"  comes  round. 


THE   JOLLY   GIRL 

1882 

I  WAS  not  a  little  confused  the  other  day  by  the  question  of 
a  brilliant  French  lady,  who  knows  English  homes  to  the  core, 
"What  has  come  to  your  girls  of  late?"  said  she.  "The 
ravissante  Miss,  who  used  to  be  our  idol,  has  taken  to  cigar- 
ettes and  Newmarket  coats."  I  begged  her  not  to  take  so 
seriously  the  passing  whims  of  fashion.  I  urged  that  our 
girls  are  as  beautiful  as  ever,  and  in  this  callisthenic  age  both 
healthier  in  body  and  freer  in  mind.  "I  say  nothing  against 
their  looks  and  their  spirits,"  said  she;  "the  hunting  and 
boating  and  tennis  for  which  you  all  seem  to  live,  will,  I  dare- 
say, improve  their  figures,  if  it  does  not  ruin  their  health. 
What  I  cannot  endure  in  a  girl  is  a  taste  for  the  ways  of  men, 
and  not  of  the  best  men  —  what  your  Charivari  calls  the  aw- 
fully jolly  girl."  My  national  pride  was  wounded  by  this, 
for  I  had  always  believed  that  if  there  was  anything  of  which 
England  possessed  the  secret,  it  was  how  to  produce  the  Eng- 
lish girl.  Long  had  I  dreamed  of  "the  not  impossible  she  " ; 
and  years  and  years  ago  I  had  wooed  and  won  her  at  last. 
Can  it  be  true,  methought,  that  we  are  breeding  a  kind  of  girl 
of  whom  such  things  can  be  said  ?  This  new  and  engaging 
freedom  of  theirs,  is  it  all  as  it  should  be  ?  I  fell  a-thinking 
about  our  new  manners  and  resolved  to  use  my  eyes.  The 
philosophy  of  clothes  is  complete ;  and  no  philosophic  mind 
overlooks  the  subtle  correlations  of  clothes  and  soul.  Nor  am 

394 


THE   JOLLY  GIRL  395 

I  hard  to  please  in  the  fashions  of  the  day.  I  often  think  I 
see  some  of  the  creations  of  Reynolds  and  Romney  step  down 
from  the  frame  and  move  amongst  us  all  glowing  with  life. 
Nay,  I  have  only  a  good-natured  smile  for  those  passionate 
figures  in  faded  green  who  give  couleur  locale  to  the  "private 
view."  The  beauty  of  dress,  I  protest,  is  no  longer  an  extinct 
art.  But  what  are  we  to  say  to  the  clothes  of  the  jolly  girl  ? 
An  epicene  slip  of  a  thing  does  she  love  to  make  of  herself ! 
At  fifty  yards  off  you  would  think  she  was  still  in  the  school- 
room; the  slim  Kate  Greenaway  costume-bebe  suggests  the 
playground  and  a  game  of  romps.  No !  she  has  seen  twenty, 
and  has  had  her  offers.  Were  I  a  marrying  man  I  should 
wait,  I  think,  till  she  grew  to  be  more  like  a  woman. 

A  style  of  the  day,  which  I  find  even  harder  to  bear  than 
that  of  the  grown-up  baby,  is  the  lady's  version  of  the  horsey 
youth.  She  has  borrowed  his  billycock  hat,  his  dog's-ear 
collar,  his  knowing  breast-pocket,  his  gloves,  his  buttons,  and 
his  boots.  Her  hair  is  cut  short,  like  a  curly  boy's ;  her  jacket 
is  made  by  a  London  tailor;  Newmarket  has  given  its  fiat 
to  her  horseman's  overcoat;  and  the  flower  in  the  button- 
hole is  the  last  word  of  Piccadilly.  Nor  let  us  forget  the  whip, 
for  no  family  that  respects  itself  can  live  without  collies  all 
over  the  place.  And  a  girl  of  this  persuasion  could  as  little 
be  seen  without  her  dog-whip  as  a  Guardsman  without  a 
button-hole.  She  has  contrived,  too,  to  spoil  what  I  take  to  be 
as  pleasant  a  sight  as  the  animated  world  affords  —  a  fine 
woman  sitting  well  on  a  fine  horse.  The  poetry  of  motion  is 
dismally  turned  into  prose  by  the  habit  cut  square  at  the  ankle, 
the  visible  trousers  and  jockey  boots.  The  theory  is,  as  we 
all  know,  that  the  fair  rider  in  Rotten  Row  is  fresh  from  a 
run  across  country.  The  melancholy  fact  is  that  she  has 
somewhat  the  look  of  a  stable-boy  who  has  thrown  on  a  skirt. 
My  French  friend  is  so  far  right;  it  is  difficult,  indeed,  to 


396  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

think  of  this  female  Tally-ho  as  entirely  a  thing  of  beauty. 
The  women  who  copy  the  ways  of  men  at  best  succeed  in  re- 
sembling boys.  The  special  habits  and  interests  of  men,  their 
athletic  and  sporting  tastes,  their  melancholy  experience  of 
what  is  called  "life,"  can  no  more  be  appropriated  by  a  girl 
than  our  topboots  and  riding-breeches.  She  only  approaches 
that  unnatural  monster,  the  boy  who  is  aping  a  man.  I  am 
not  so  old  or  such  a  misanthrope  but  that  I  find  myself  at 
times  amongst  young  people  at  a  dance  or  a  garden  party. 
I  see  a  handsome  young  fellow  from  Aldershot  talking  to  a 
fine  girl,  the  picture  of  youth  and  grace.  "They  are  flirt- 
ing, I  hope,  as  they  should,"  says  a  match-making  old  thing. 
Flirting !  my  dear  lady ;  he  has  been  telling  her  about  that 
awfully  jolly  run  with  the  Quorn,  don't  you  know.  And  now 
she  is  asking  him  with  an  anxious  look  if  it  is  really  true  that 
No.  7  is  not  fit.  For  an  hour,  as  I  sat  within  hearing  on  the 
bench,  she  has  patiently  committed  to  memory  the  merits  of 
barrack  after  barrack  and  station  after  station  —  a  form  of 
feminine  curiosity  which  he  has  but  languidly  satisfied,  though 
he  has  no  other  topic  with  which  to  entertain  her.  "Alder- 
shot,"  says  he,  "is  such  an  awfully  jolly  place,  don't  you 
know."  "Is  it  really?"  says  she,  with  feeling.  "I  mean," 
says  he,  "such  a  jolly  place  to  get  away  from."  And  she 
knows  who  is  bound  to  win  the  mile  race  unless  Jigger  Mow- 
bray  can  stand  the  training,  which  is  not  to  be  thought  of, 
don't  you  know.  And  so  they  go  on,  from  mere  habit,  talk- 
ing the  talk  of  the  smoking-room,  or  so  much  of  it  as  can  be 
dribbled  into  the  ears  of  a  pure  young  girl.  By  all  that  is 
sacred,  I  glow  with  shame  when  I  see  a  beautiful  woman  thus 
put  off  her  sex,  when  she  certainly  can  never  put  on  ours. 

What  are  they  to  gain,  these  favourites  of  the  regiment  and 
the  hunt,  that  they  thus  humble  themselves,  that  they  so  dis- 
figure and  weary  themselves  in  laboriously  ceasing  to  be 


THE   JOLLY  GIRL  397 

women?  It  is  not  husbands,  assuredly,  they  are  seeking. 
Our  young  friend  from  Aldershot  does  not  trouble  himself 
to  flirt  with  girls ;  he  has  not  the  remotest  idea  of  marriage ; 
nor,  indeed,  has  his  fair  partner,  at  least  with  the  like  of  him. 
She  is  not  thinking  of  fascinating  him  at  all ;  would,  indeed, 
that  she  were !  Marriage  is  an  affair  of  carriages  and  horses ; 
for  these  she  must  look  to  older  men,  and  she  does  not  like 
older  men.  No !  she  is  only  filling  her  appointed  part,  the 
awfully  jolly  girl,  which  her  society  expects  her  to  be.  Dolly 
and  Darling,  Judy  and  Jo,  have  to  do  it,  and  so  must  she. 
And  so  the  poor  child  waits  wearily  in  cold  or  rain,  through  the 
interminable  "sports,"  whilst  hairy  men  with  bare  legs  pant 
round  and  round  the  ring ;  and  she  sits  in  a  cloud  of  tobacco 
through  the  endless  cricket-match ;  nor  does  she  blench  if  she 
chance  to  be  spattered  with  blood  and  feathers  at  Hurlingham. 
And  all  these  long  hours  she  has  to  listen  to  the  wonderful 
story,  how  the  bay  mare  threw  a  splint,  how  Tubby  Talbot 
won  the  cup,  and  what  came  of  the  row  at  the  Rag  and  Fam- 
ish. She  is  indeed  weary  of  it  all;  but  she  will  never  be  a 
jolly  girl  if  she  cannot  bear  it.  I  wonder  if  she  knows  how 
little  men  really  care  for  this  strange  receptivity  of  hers.  To 
the  young  fellow  this  girl  with  her  manly  acquirements  just 
so  far  ceases  to  be  woman  without  advancing  a  step  towards 
man.  She  listens  to  him  as  the  fag  at  school  listens  to  the  big 
felldw  in  the  boat  or  the  eleven.  It  is  pleasant  to  him  that  the 
young  'un  wears  skirts  and  has  lips  even  ruddier  than  a  fag. 
It  is  pleasant  to  him ;  but  not  wholly  to  us  elders  and  fathers. 
And  then  the  young  one  is  not  really  a  boy,  in  the  way  to  be  a 
man.  The  soft  hands  will  never  hold  bat  or  oar  in  earnest. 
Thus  the  talk  goes  lounging  on  in  that  hollow  way,  much  as 
we  catch  it  across  a  railway  bar.  The  tones  are  perhaps 
more  polite ;  but  can  any  one  say  that  the  sense  is  better  ? 
I  do  not  set  up  for  a  moralist ;  it  is  no  business  of  mine  to 


398  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

preach  about  frivolity  and  vice.  My  only  philosophy  is  to 
think  nothing  human  as  alien  to  me.  When  I  was  a  young 
fellow,  if  youths  and  maidens  met,  silly  as  might  be  the  talk, 
there  was  always  a  lurking  idea  that  we  were  still  in  the 
presence  of  women.  Girls  in  my  time  expected  us  to  treat 
them  on  the  assumption  that  they  were  women,  or  that  they 
very  soon  would  be.  If  you  could  not  entertain  them,  as 
women  all  the  world  over  love  to  be  entertained,  they  turned 
to  one  another  and  amused  themselves.  When  we  sat  with  a 
sweet  young  thing  in  the  verandah  as  the  band  played  the  last 
notes  of  "Kathleen  Mavourneen"  we  had  something,  I  vow, 
to  talk  about  besides  cricket  averages,  the  club  cigars,  and  the 
right  cut  of  a  bulldog's  ears.  And  as  we  never  saw  cigarettes 
in  the  lips  of  our  partners,  it  never  occurred  to  us  to  smoke 
between  the  dances. 

I  have  no  turn  for  satire;  but  I  love  to  watch  our  social 
moods  and  to  trace  them  to  their  causes  and  effects.  And  per- 
haps we  may  note  three  things  at  least  which  have  led  to  the 
changes  we  see.  I  suppose  the  work  began  with  that  wave  of 
athleticism  which  of  late  has  swept  over  the  land,  turning  the 
heads  of  not  a  few  lads  and  importing  some  laughable  cus- 
toms ;  but,  if  its  effect  upon  men  was  more  or  less  manly  and 
wholesome,  its  effect  indirectly  on  women  was  perhaps  a  more 
doubtful  gain.  When  the  gymnastic  idol  was  set  up,  and  the 
muscular  type  of  virtue  became  the  whole  duty  of  man,  there 
were  found  English  girls  to  suppose  it  the  whole  duty  of 
woman.  Physically,  it  may  be,  it  strengthened  those  whom 
it  did  not  slaughter  outright.  But  as  the  girl  could  after  all 
only  join  in  the  new  worship  as  a  proselyte  of  the  gate,  she 
fell  into  the  social  position  of  the  "lower  school"  at  a  cricket 
match.  The  jolly  girl,  in  fact,  became  a  fag.  When  athletics 
are  the  business  of  life,  the  tone  of  society  is  naturally  set  by 
men.  Was  not  a  second  cause  at  work  in  the  triumphs  of  the 


THE   JOLLY  GIRL  399 

famous  American  beauty?  This  fascinating  being,  I  doubt 
not,  on  her  own  side  of  the  Atlantic  has  planted  the  germs 
of  new  feminine  epochs.  There  was  nothing  of  the  play- 
ground or  hunt  about  her;  her  important  discovery  was  the 
freedom  of  her  sex.  It  may  be  doubted  if  our  ancient  system 
on  this  side  of  the  ocean  is  duly  prepared  for  such  dash,  such 
originality,  such  angelic  self-possession.  The  type,  however 
brilliant,  is  a  perilous  one  to  adopt.  For  the  American  girl, 
who  so  startles  us  at  home,  has  her  own  traditions  and  habits. 
When  she  shook  from  her  airy  skirts  the  conventions  of  the 
Old  World,  she  founded  the  conventions  of  the  New.  At 
home  she  reigns  still,  and  imposes  her  law  on  men,  concerning 
herself  but  little  about  mess-rooms  and  gun-clubs.  Young 
ladies,  you  who  think  of  adopting  her  adorable  freedom  of 
manner,  be  sure  that  you  also  adopt  her  shrewd  and  original 
spirit. 

A  word,  too,  as  to  another  thing.  It  has  been  thought  the 
happiness  of  this  kingdom  that  its  throne  is  girt  about  by  a 
princely  family,  of  high  spirit  and  singular  popularity.  Wher- 
ever our  golden  youth  most  loves  to  congregate,  there  do  we 
find  our  princes  in  their  midst.  And  the  ideal  of  life  which 
these  Royal  soldiers  and  sailors  have  impressed  on  our  mod- 
ern society,  is  an  ideal  perhaps  more  easily  attained  by  men 
than  it  ever  can  be  by  women.  So  tremendous,  indeed,  is 
the  pace  in  the  new  Imperial  sweepstakes  that  only  the  most 
jolly  of  their  sex  can  expect  to  attain  a  place.  But  be  the 
causes  three  or  three  hundred  the  result  is  a  curious  social 
inversion.  The  relative  place  of  men  and  women  is  reversed 
in  this  rapid  and  dazzling  world.  Of  old,  the  idea  was  that 
in  things  social  the  woman  was  mistress,  queen,  and  leader. 
Men,  in  her  presence,  were  to  study  her  tastes  and  submit  to 
her  law.  If  they  could  not  exist  without  tobacco  they  might 
go  elsewhere;  if  they  wanted  to  be  killing  something,  to  a 


400  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

shooting  party;    and  the  matches  discussed  in  a  drawing- 
room  had  nothing  to  do  with  Lord's. 

One  is  curious  to  know  how  these  young  bloods  and  sub- 
alterns regard  the  women  who  have  got  by  heart  their  mess 
gossip,  who  have  betting-books  on  the  garrison  sports,  and 
will  sit  half  the  day  to  see  pigeons  mangled.  Is  such  an  one  a 
girl  we  care  to  think  of  as  wife,  as  the  mother  of  the  children 
to  be,  as  all  that  woman  should  be  and  is  in  the  world?  I 
can  imagine  nothing  more  ruinous  to  womanly  nature  than 
the  ways  and  ihe  talk  of  a  rather  precocious  lad.  Is  there  not 
a  bloom  upon  an  English  girl  of  the  best  old  type  that  the  camp 
and  cricket-ground  will  hardly  improve  ?  Purity,  simplicity, 
health,  courage,  grace,  and  goodness  attended,  like  the  good 
fairy,  to  bless  her  birth.  Do  mothers  or  fathers  imagine  that 
the  winners  of  cups  and  sweepstakes  have  better  gifts  to  im- 
part ?  I  can  remember  what  a  keen  old  lady  said  once  to  a 
mother  who  was  mourning  her  lot  in  having  no  daughter  — 
"Be  thankful,  my  dear,  you  have  none.  In  these  days,  who 
knows?  she  might  have  turned  out  a  jolly  girl !" 


MAN   AND   THE    BRUTES 

1900 

%  Address  to  the  Humanitarian  League} 

IT  was  with  all  the  more  pleasure  that  I  accepted  your  in- 
vitation to  speak  on  the  relations  of  Man  to  the  Lower  Ani- 
mals, because  I  feel  that  sound  views  about  them  go  to  the 
very  root  of  a  right  understanding  of  Humanity  itself,  and  are 
of  vital  importance  to  the  future  of  our  own  race.  We  cannot 
understand,  or  respect,  or  rightly  educate  Mankind,  until  we 
come  to  understand,  to  respect,  and  to  do  our  duty  by  the 
Animal  kind.  And  our  whole  ethical  system,  I  will  add,  must 
be  undermined,  perverted,  poisoned,  if  we  cannot  learn  to  put 
the  relations  of  Man  to  the  Lower  Animals  on  a  healthy, 
scientific,  social,  and  religious  basis.  To  me,  human  nature 
is  unintelligible  apart  from  a  right  conception  of  animal  na- 
ture in  the  sum;  human  duty  involves  and  includes  duty 
towards  the  animal  kingdom,  of  which  we  are  only  a  part; 
and  religion,  as  I  understand  it,  implies  religious  reverence 
and  a  sense  of  religious  sympathy  with  the  vast  animal 
world,  of  which  we  are  the  head. 

I  do  not  admit  any  contrast  between  Man  and  Animals. 
Man  is  an  Animal,  and  only  the  first  amongst  the  Animals, 
and  that  in  no  absolute  sense.  I  do  not  know  what  the  Rights 
of  Man  are  —  much  less  shall  I  talk  about  the  Rights  of  Ani- 
mals. The  only  moral  Right  of  Man  that  I  recognise  is  the 

2  D  4OI 


402  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

Right  to  do  his  Duty.  And  the  only  Rights  of  Animals 
that  I  know  are  the  Mutual  Duties  of  Man  and  the  Lower 
Animals. 

I  had  better  come  to  the  point  at  once,  even  at  the  risk  of 
paining  some  who  hear  me,  by  saying  that  I  regard  man's 
morality  towards  the  Lower  Animals  to  be  a  vital,  and  indeed 
fundamental  part  of  his  morality  towards  his  fellow-men.  I 
refuse  to  treat  it  as  an  extra,  an  appendix,  or  finishing  touch 
superadded  to  our  ethical  creed.  I  do  so,  because  I  do  not 
know  what  Ethics  can  mean,  if  it  be  not  the  due  ordering  of 
our  own  complex  nature  (a  large  and  indispensable  part  of 
which  is  animal)  towards  the  vast  organic  world  in  which  we 
find  ourselves.  Of  that  organic  world,  the  Animal  Kingdom 
is  the  predominant  part,  as  Man  is  only  the  predominant 
member  of  the  Animal  Kingdom.  That  is,  Man  does  not 
differ  from  Animals,  in  the  same  way  that  Animals  differ  from 
Vegetables,  or  Vegetables  differ  from  Minerals  or  Rocks. 
Zoologically  speaking,  he  is  classed  amongst  Primates,  as  one 
of  the  highest  order  of  mammals.  His  physical,  moral,  in- 
tellectual, and  therefore  his  spiritual,  nature  does  not  organi- 
cally differ  in  kind  from  those  of  the  highest  mammals.  It 
differs  only  in  degree,  and  by  a  vast  hereditary  and  secular 
evolution.  And  it  does  not  differ  in  degree  —  absolutely  and 
invariably. 

Scientific  Ethics  are  founded  upon  analysis  of  man's  com- 
posite qualities  —  affective,  practical,  intellectual  —  and  that 
harmony  between  all  these  and  the  organic  and  inorganic 
world  that  environs  us,  which  is  best  fitted  to  secure  the  full 
development  of  our  whole  nature.  I  know  no  other  basis  for 
Ethics  but  this.  Well !  I  say  the  higher  mammals  share  with 
us,  in  some  perceptible  degree,  the  various  qualities  —  quali- 
ties of  feeling,  of  action,  of  intelligence.  They  share  all  of 
these  qualities  in  some  degree,  and  some  of  them  in  a  very 


MAN  AND   THE   BRUTES  403 

high  degree.  And  not  only  do  the  higher  mammals  show 
them,  but  even  some  of  the  lower  mammals,  even  all  verte- 
brates, show  germs  of  these  qualities  —  nay,  some  of  them  are 
occasionally  traceable  here  and  there  in  the  invertebrate 
world. 

Consider  what  are  the  essential  instincts  or  propensities  of 
man.  They  are  the  instincts  of  (i)  Nutrition,  (2)  Sex,  (3) 
Parenthood,  (4)  Destruction,  (5)  Construction,  (6)  Love  of 
Power,  (7)  Love  of  Praise,  (8)  Attachment,  (9)  Reverence, 
(10)  Kindness  or  Love.  No  one  denies  that  all  these  instincts 
are  found  in  a  marked  degree  in  some  or  other  of  the  lower 
animals.  Obviously  all  brutes  have  the  instincts  of  nutrition, 
sex,  maternity,  destruction.  Many,  of  course,  have  these 
qualities  in  far  more  energetic  forms  than  man.  No  one 
denies  that  some  animals  show  constructive  instincts,  love  of 
power,  and  of  praise — beavers,  birds,  ants,  bees  have  the  first ; 
elephants,  dogs,  and  monkeys  certainly  have  the  other  two. 
As  to  attachment,  dogs  often  show  it  in  a  degree  even  rare  in 
man.  Of  reverence  we  can  say  the  same.  Most  domestic  ani- 
mals show  the  last  —  kindness,  goodness,  love.  Most  of  the 
nobler  mammals  show  germs  of  all  our  moral  characteristics. 

As  to  man's  qualities  of  character:  (i)  Courage,  (2)  Cau- 
tiousness, (3)  Resolution,  brutes  have  them  all.  Many  ani- 
mals are  as  brave  as  man,  so  that  the  natural  man  calls  him- 
self as  brave  as  a  lion,  or  a  leopard,  or  a  game-cock,  or  an 
eagle.  Dogs,  horses,  foxes,  elephants,  rats,  swallows,  and 
trout  are  excessively  wary  in  danger,  and  most  of  the  same 
animals,  especially  dogs,  cats,  foxes,  pigs,  and  elephants,  ex- 
hibit wonderful  resolution,  perseverance,  and  the  will  not  to 
be  beaten.  It  is  only  in  the  intellectual  qualities  that  doubt 
can  exist.  No  one  denies  the  powers  of  observation  of  such 
brutes  as  dogs,  cats,  foxes,  monkeys,  and  elephants.  Powers 
of  abstraction,  reflection,  generalisation,  are  often  denied  to 


404  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

brutes.  But  all  of  these  can  be  found  distinctly  marked  in 
some  dogs,  monkeys,  and  elephants.  They  have  shown  faint 
germs  of  the  power  to  count,  to  reason,  to  classify.  And  no 
one  denies  to  brutes  the  power  of  expression  —  by  gesture, 
by  mimicry,  and  by  sounds. 

Here,  then,  we  have  all  the  affective,  active,  and  intellectual 
qualities  of  man  traceable  in  other  mammals,  although  of 
course  the  higher  qualities  are  only  traceable  in  germ,  and  no 
mammal  exhibits  anything  like  the  completeness  and  due  co- 
ordination of  qualities  found  in  man.  Not  only  are  all  the 
qualities  of  man  traceable  in  brutes,  but  all  the  institutions  and 
habits  consequent  on  these  qualities  are  traceable  in  brutes  — 
that  is,  in  faint  germ,  in  a  few  species,  or  in  rare  specimens 
of  the  species.  Brutes  have  a  marked  and  sometimes  a  beau- 
tiful family  life;  they  are  capable  of  tribal  life;  monkeys, 
beavers,  bees,  and  ants  are  capable  of  organised  activities 
and  industries.  Many  brutes  provide  for  a  distant  future; 
many  amuse  themselves  in  play ;  many  are  highly  inquisitive ; 
many  are  exceedingly  sociable  and  communicative.  I  believe 
that  some  tribes  of  apes  and  some  dogs  can  talk,  at  least  can 
communicate  ideas  and  wants.  Some  have  instituted  systems 
of  education ;  and  we  can  even  trace  the  germs  of  conscience 
and  of  worship. 

The  result  of  all  this  is,  that  the  lower  animals  are  not 
separated  from  us  by  any  absolute  gulf,  but  are  our  feebler, 
undeveloped,  younger  brothers,  as  it  were ;  below  us  in  degree, 
in  development,  in  education,  in  educable  capacity,  but  not 
below  us  absolutely  in  kind.  Some  very  rare  examples  of 
animals  are  superior  in  intellect  to  some  very  degraded  human 
beings ;  some  depraved  men  are  much  more  brutal  than  some 
brutes.  Neither  morally,  nor  intellectually,  nor  by  character 
are  men  as  far  above  dogs  as  dogs  are  above  reptiles  or  fishes. 
In  some  of  the  lower  stages  of  civilisation,  to  a  great  extent  in 


MAN   AND   THE   BRUTES  405 

Southern  Europe  to-day,  man  regards  himself  as  absolute 
Lord  and  Master  of  the  whole  world  round  him,  and  he  lumps 
the  organic  and  inorganic  kingdoms  in  one,  and  considers 
himself  entitled  to  treat  all  "brutes"  with  the  same  absolute 
authority  and  want  of  sympathy  that  he  shows  to  a  forest  of 
trees  or  a  mine  of  coal.  He  claims  the  right  to  cut,  carve,  burn 
all  alike  —  mineral,  wood,  or  beast.  None  of  these,  he  says, 
have  souls.  Non  sono  Cristiani  —  says  the  Neapolitan  driver. 
No  rational  Ethic  or  general  philosophy  can  be  built  upon 
such  a  huge  and  monstrous  sophism.  Truly  considered,  the 
highest  mammals,  certainly  what  we  call  the  domestic  ani- 
mals, form  a  part  of  Humanity,  or  are  an  appendix  to  Hu- 
manity, are  the  willing  slaves  or  camp-followers  of  Humanity, 
and  are  its  auxiliaries  in  the  colossal  task  of  ruling,  improving, 
and  utilising  the  vast  world  external  to  man  —  man's  organic 
and  inorganic  environment  and  kingdom.  These  noble 
brutes  share  man's  glorious  duty,  and  they  immensely  aid 
his  triumphs  over  Nature,  for,  without  them,  many  of  his 
best  creations  would  be  paralysed  or  impossible.  These  noble 
brutes  share  too  in  his  moral  qualities,  and  not  seldom  they 
set  him  most  beautiful  examples  which  nothing  human  but 
the  tenderest  mother  and  the  most  heroic  martyr  can  display. 
The  best  of  the  brutes  most  familiar  to  us,  most  useful  to  us, 
most  dear  to  us,  were  it  only  a  pet  bird,  form  a  part  of  our 
household,  are  members  of  our  homes,  are  inmates  of  our 
family,  and  they  occupy  such  a  place  as  the  wisest  of  the 
Greek  philosophers  assigned  to  the  slave  in  the  ancient  world. 
There  can  be  no  State,  they  said,  without  Family,  and  no 
Family  without  Slaves.  We  may  say,  far  more  truly,  there 
can  be  no  Humanity,  in  the  highest  sense,  without  the  Brutes, 
and  no  real  Humanity  that  has  not  in  part  incorporated  the 
noblest  and  most  serviceable  of  the  animal  friends  and  help- 
mates of  Man. 


406  MEMORIES   AND   THOUGHTS 

Some  of  the  earliest  and  most  splendid  triumphs  of  human 
civilisation  turned  on  the  subjugation,  civilisation,  domestica- 
tion, of  the  brutes.  Until  man  had  secured  the  dog,  the  cat, 
the  ox  and  the  cow,  the  horse  and  the  ass,  the  cock  and  the 
pigeon,  the  sheep  and  the  pig,  the  goat  and  the  deer,  the  camel 
and  the  elephant  —  his  final  kingdom  of  this  earth  was  not 
secure.  Imagine  man  absolutely  cut  off  from  the  service  and 
help  of  all  of  these  animals,  that  is,  that  they  are  all  wild  beasts 
—  we  see  him  at  once  reduced  to  the  level  of  the  Australian 
bushman. 

Our  relation  to  the  animals,  at  least  to  the  nobler  mammals, 
does  not  form  an  appendix  to  our  human  morality,  much  less 
does  it  form  a  distinct  branch  of  Ethics,  or  an  independent 
morality  by  itself.  No !  it  is  part  and  parcel  of  our  human 
morality,  and  is  inwoven  with  it  and  inseparable  from  it. 
Our  duties  towards  our  lower  helpmates  form  part  of  our 
duties  towards  our  fellow-beings.  The  highest  "brutes" 
are  our  fellow-beings.  Man  can  only  regard  himself  as  the 
advance  guard,  or  as  the  commanding  officer  and  leader  of  a 
vast  army  of  living,  sentient,  and  moral  beings,  whose  natural 
function  is  to  use,  improve,  and  make  the  best  of  this  won- 
drous and  complex  earth. 

Not,  of  course,  that  this  indivisible  human  morality  re- 
quires us  to  treat  in  the  same  way  all  animals,  even  all  do- 
mestic animals,  or  to  treat  any  in  the  same  way  as  we  treat 
men.  Therein  lies  the  sophism  and  the  distorted  view  of 
some  excellent  people  who  forbid  man  to  do  anything  to  a 
cow  or  a  sheep  that  he  does  not  feel  it  right  to  do  to  his  neigh- 
bour. In  that  case  he  may  not  eat  an  egg,  nor  drink  a  cup 
of  milk,  which  involves  killing  or  stinting  the  poor  calf ;  nor 
could  he  shear  a  sheep  to  make  his  coat,  and  leave  the  poor 
wether  to  shiver ;  nor  could  he  geld  a  horse  or  a  bull,  in  which 
case  the  usefulness  of  the  equine  and  bovine  races  would  be 


MAN   AND   THE   BRUTES  407 

reduced  to  a  minimum,  and  involve  much  sacrifice  of  human 
life.  Nor,  indeed,  could  he  drown  a  kitten  or  a  mouse,  in 
which  case  mankind  would  soon  have  to  retreat  to  another 
planet.  Human  morality  does  not  require  us  to  treat  an  in- 
fant in  arms  as  we  treat  our  grown-up  sons,  or  to  treat  a  child 
as  we  treat  husband  or  wife,  father  or  mother,  or  a  Red  Ind- 
ian as  we  treat  a  fellow-citizen,  or  to  behave  to  a  rude  Hotten- 
tot exactly  as  we  behave  to  a  cultivated  Frenchman  or  Ger- 
man. All  that  scientific  and  humane  morality  teaches  and 
demands  is  to  deal  with  the  sentient,  and  in  part  the  sym- 
pathetic, animal  world  as  the  living  instruments,  and  to  a 
great  extent  as  the  conscious  allies,  of  Humanity,  in  its  vast 
and  arduous  task  of  developing  its  own  highest  nature,  and 
also  the  fair  planet  whereon  its  life  is  cast  and  its  mighty 
destiny  has  to  be  evolved. 

This  view  of  humane  Ethics  in  relation  to  the  lower  animals 
involves  an  immense  body  of  derivative  details  and  practical 
applications,  on  which  it  is  impossible  to  enter  on  this  occasion. 
Every  one  of  them  implies  for  its  right  treatment  a  great  mass 
of  special  knowledge  and  of  very  cautious  deduction  from 
facts.  What  I  regret,  is  to  see  how  often  violent  doctrines  are 
preached,  and  furious  invectives  are  launched  without  know- 
ledge, without  care,  and  with  complete  indifference  to  any  co- 
herent philosophy  or  science.  I  do  not  intend  to  imitate  such 
hasty  decision  of  intricate  details,  or  such  vehement  conclu- 
sions from  crude  and  unproven  hypotheses.  I  came  here  to 
speak  on  Ethical  principles,  and  I  keep  to  this  general  issue. 

Humane  and  scientific  morality  involves  our  regarding  our- 
selves as  akin  to  the  whole  animal  world,  and  as  fellow- work- 
ers with  the  higher  animals  and  the  domesticated  species  in 
the  common  task  of  developing  on  the  planet  the  noblest  type 
of  animal  life.  That  noblest  type  is  not  exclusively  human 
life  in  any  absolute  sense.  Man,  in  his  vast  secular  evolution, 


408  MEMORIES  AND   THOUGHTS 

has  incorporated  a  portion  of  the  lower  world  so  inextricably 
with  himself,  that  it  would  be  impossible  to  separate  them,  or 
even  to  replace  the  animals  in  their  native  condition.  Man 
has  transformed  the  physical  shape,  the  habits,  the  needs,  the 
moral  and  emotional  nature  of  many  animals  in  a  manner  so 
irrevocable  and  to  a  degree  so  marvellous,  that  they  could  not 
be  put  back  to  their  natural  state.  To  do  so,  would  be  to 
degrade  their  and  to  ruin  our  civilisation. 

Does  this  humane  and  scientific  morality  absolutely  debar 
us  from  doing  anything  to  destroy  life,  to  maim,  or  give  pain 
to  brutes,  even  to  the  higher  brutes,  to  the  domesticated  ani- 
mals ?  Certainly  not !  To  lay  down  such  an  absolute  rule 
would  be  to  put  an  end  to  the  domestic  species,  and  thus  to  the 
civilisation  of  animals,  their  sympathy  and  alliance  with 
Man;  and  furthermore  to  throw  man  back  into  the  lowest 
savagery.  Civilisation  has  been  slowly  built  up  after  secular 
and  terrific  combat  with  the  other  animal  races.  It  is  even 
possible  that  Man  has  only  just  won  the  long  battle  by  the  skin 
of  his  teeth  or  the  joints  of  his  hand,  and  has  crushed  and 
kept  down  some  species  that  were  once  his  dangerous  rivals. 
In  any  case,  it  is  certain  that  Man's  victory  has  involved  enor- 
mous slaughter,  incessant  combat,  and  incalculable  and  in- 
describable agony. 

The  maintenance  and  the  development  of  human  civilisa- 
tion —  and  in  human  civilisation  is  involved  animal  civilisa- 
tion —  inevitably  requires  a  continuance  of  combat,  the  per- 
petuation of  enormous  slaughter,  the  infliction  of  much 
unavoidable  pain.  It  is  the  lot  of  Humanity,  and  we  have 
no  talisman  to  exempt  the  lower  animals,  not  even  those  which 
serve  us,  much  less  those  which  war  against  us,  plague  us,  or 
destroy  us.  Countless  animal  species  useless  to  Man,  and 
alas !  not  a  few  useful  to  Man,  have  disappeared  from  the 
Planet  in  the  long  warfare  between  Man  and  Brute;  and, 


MAN   AND    THE   BRUTES  409 

doubtless,  many  troublesome  and  noxious  species  will  have 
to  disappear  in  the  future.  Nature  means  one  vast  whirlpool 
of  war,  death,  and  agony  —  and  Man,  who  did  not  create  it, 
and  cannot  control  it,  is  powerless  to  vary  this  law. 

What  we  can  do,  what  we  are  bound  to  do,  is  to  reduce  to  a 
minimum  this  inevitable  pain,  to  stop  all  needless  slaughter, 
to  avoid  waste,  and  wanton  indifference  to  suffering.  What 
death  and  pain  we  inflict  must  be  in  strict  accord  with  the 
necessities  of  civilisation,  and  to  the  ultimate  protection  and 
amelioration  of  the  vanguard  of  the  animal  world  as  a  whole, 
of  which  Man  is  only  the  guardian.  Above  all,  if  we  deal  out 
death  and  suffering  to  the  animal  world  around  us,  it  behoves 
us  to  test  our  souls  most  keenly,  that  there  lurk  therein  no 
trace  of  enjoyment  in  the  infliction,  no  brutal  insensibility 
to  our  action,  no  wanton  curiosity,  no  diabolical  passion  of 
vanity  or  ambition.  This  is  to  turn  into  a  curse  one  of  man's 
noblest  prerogatives  and  duties. 

There  is  no  space  here  to  deal  with  all  the  practical  ques- 
tions that  flow  from  these  principles  —  questions  enormously 
complicated  and  subtle  —  questions  of  food,  clothing,  la- 
bour, science,  and  amusement.  I  reserve  them  all;  each  of 
them  is  big  enough  and  difficult  enough  to  occupy  a  separate 
lecture,  or  rather  a  whole  work,  a  night  of  discussion  —  we 
may  say  a  lifetime.  And  I  will  only  ask  you,  in  conclusion, 
to  consider  how  greatly  the  best  poetry  and  thought  of  the 
world  has  been  strengthened  and  inspired  by  due  sense  of  the 
claims  of  brutes,  the  sympathy  and  intellect  of  animals,  and 
Man's  communion  with  the  animals  —  from  Homer's  noble 
picture  of  Ulysses  and  his  dog  Argus  to  Cowper's  hares,  and 
Burns's  field-mouse,  and  Matthew  Arnold's  pets:  all  the 
legends  about  the  Animal  World  from  ^Esop  to  Kipling  — 
all  the  fine  lessons  of  our  literature  from  Chaucer  to  Walter 
Scott. 


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